Writing skills
Under writing skills ( English writing literacy ) is the ability to read texts to write. This complex ability is made up of various sub-competencies that have to be learned, practiced and coordinated in many steps.
Writing skills development
Various factors affect the competence development process. The development depends on the respective task. The type of task, the socio-cultural context and the specialist discipline also play a decisive role.
Forming full sentences is the most sensitive and specific way to spot writing difficulties at the age of 10. The corresponding ability is predicted both by the ability to form spoken sentences, by fluent handwriting, and by the memory span while listening .
Writing as a complex skill
Partial skills
Written communication differs from oral communication in several essential ways. Being able to write means much more than just learning how to assign sounds to letters and adhering to orthographic norms.
Written communication overcomes space and time. The texts are usually aimed at readers who are not present. Therefore the writer has to put his point of view into perspective and be able to consider the absent reader with his possible needs, problems of understanding and objections. When the ability to empathize with an absent reader is acquired not only depends on age, but is also a matter of practice.
Writing also requires other cognitive skills (see below). It is generally believed that the path to fully developed writing skills consists of many learning steps.
A modeling of writing skills proposed by Chitez and Kruse consists of the following components: knowledge (is represented by writing, but at the same time acquired through it), writing process (includes the knowledge that writing is a process that consists of the stages of planning, Reading, structuring, formulating, revising and checking), communication (writing serves to communicate knowledge; writers move in a collective to which they refer and to which they add something), genre (includes knowledge of the types of text), Media (dealing with new media and the resulting requirements for writing) and language (writing requires knowledge of the written language and academic language). However, the writing competence "[...] cannot be explained additively from the individual sub-skills, rather it consists precisely in the ability to combine these sub-skills in a targeted, integral writing process."
Another modeling was proposed by Becker-Mrotzek and Schindler in 2008. The following six areas must then be mastered (they too must not be thought of as being independent of one another): media / tools, orthography, lexicons, syntax, text patterns and reader orientation.
Skill complexes according to preparer
Bereiter (1980) designed a model for developing writing skills. He differentiates between five cognitive skill complexes that characterize developed writing skills:
- Associative writing: The focus is on generating ideas and creating language . There is no or little anticipatory planning.
- Performative writing: The writer tries to create a text that follows grammatical and orthographic norms.
- Communicative writing: The writing is oriented towards the potential addressee.
- Reflected writing: The writer approaches his own text as a critical reader and evaluates it in relation to his own claims and goals.
- Epistemic writing: When writing, intellectual concepts are formed and new connections are made. Writing becomes part of thinking .
In the course of individual writing development, the number of skills that can be coordinated during the writing process gradually increases . Since the cognitive capacity of humans is limited, not all skill complexes can be suddenly developed and integrated into the writing process. The integration of new skills will only be possible when previous skills are largely automated.
Primary and secondary writing skills
According to Dieter (2006), a distinction can be made between primary and secondary writing skills. Primary writing skills are general writing skills that are independent of specific media . Secondary writing skills refer to the ability to create texts that meet the requirements of certain media in terms of content and form, e.g. B. Texts for newspapers, scientific journals or websites. The primary writing skills must be combined with knowledge of the medium and its use ( media skills ).
See also
- Illiteracy - describes individual deficits in reading or writing up to complete inability in these disciplines.
- Information literacy - the ability to deal with information.
- Competence - disambiguation page
literature
- Becker-Mrotzek, Michael / Schindler, Kirsten: Modeling, developing and testing writing skills. In: DIDAKTIK DEUTSCH special issue 2008, pp. 94-106.
- Bereiter, Carl: Development in Writing. In: Lee W. Gregg, Erwin R. Steinberg (eds.): Cognitive Processes in Writing. Erlbaum, 1980, pp. 73-93.
- Chitez, Madalina / Kruse, Otto: Writing skills during studies. Components, models and assessment. In: Dreyfürst, Stephanie / Sennewald, Nadja (ed.): Writing: Basic texts on theory, didactics and advice. Barbara Budrich Verlag, Opladen and Toronto 2012, pp. 107–123.
- Dieter, Jörg: Web literacy. Reading and writing on the World Wide Web. Dissertation at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt 2006 (PDF file; 1.9 MB) .
- List, Karl-Heinz: Simply formulate it well. Write briefly, clearly and correctly. Education Knowledge Publishing House, Nuremberg 2007.
- Ossner, Jakob : Process-oriented writing didactics in curricula. In: Jürgen Baurmann, Rüdiger Weingarten (ed.): Writing. Processes, procedures and products. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen and Wiesbaden 1995, pp. 29–50.
- Ossner, Jakob: Writing and thinking in writing. In: Dieter Adrion, Manuela Lukawec, Eckhard Schäfer, Karl Schneider (eds.): Reflect and begin. Schuldruckzentrum, Ludwigsburg 1999, pp. 159–178.