1 Composition and transcription

Start by thinking about the two key processes of writing: composition and transcription, in an activity for you.

In any language, writing involves taking thoughts from inside the mind and putting them onto paper. There are two main aspects to writing:

• Composition: An authoring role that involves getting ideas, deciding on the form of the written text (a poem, a story, a report, a recipe, a set of instructions, etc.), thinking about who will read the writing and why. Drafting is an important part of composition. The first attempt at writing anything is seldom perfect.
• Transcription: A secretarial role that involves paying attention to how the writing is presented so that others can read and understand it. This includes aspects such as handwriting, spelling, punctuation and the general layout. In transcription, the writer can work from a final draft to a finished piece of writing.

When students begin to write, in English or any language, they can find it difficult to control both composition and transcription at the same time, and perform equally well in each of them. When students focus on getting ideas for a piece of writing, they may not spell the associated words correctly; when they focus on spelling words correctly, their ideas for a story or a poem may be less creative.

Pause for thought When you teach writing in English to your students, what is the main focus – composition or transcription? Have you observed that students find it difficult to control both composition and transcription? What teaching strategies do you use to help them overcome this? What opportunities do you give to your students to draft their ideas in writing?

In Case Study 1, a teacher focuses on composition and drafting.

Case Study 1: Mr Satyam encourages drafting

Mr Satyam teaches English to Class VI students at a school in a village outside Bangalore.

I drew an outline of a man on the board. I asked a few questions to get the students thinking, such as ‘Who is he?’ and ‘Where does he live?’ I prompted the students to ask more questions about the outline of the man. They came up with their own ideas such as ‘What work does he do?’ and ‘What does he like?’

They decided that the figure would be the school cook, Ramesh. I told the students to decide how to answer the questions. I wrote some of their suggestions around the figure, on the board.

Then I told them to write their own sentences in their notebooks [Figure 1]. From these drafts, students wrote portraits of Ramesh.

Figure 1 A sample of Mr Satyam’s students’ writing about Ramesh.

Pause for thought Look carefully at the sentences the students wrote about Ramesh. Although the class discussed the answers together, each student wrote about Ramesh in slightly different ways. What does this tell you about their ability to write in English? Why do you think Mr Satyam has made only minimal corrections to their draft writing? How has Mr Satyam balanced the demands of composition and transcription in this activity?

Mr Satyam used a similar method to help students draft their ideas to write about Independence Day celebrations. He gave them a diagram and had them write sentences for each box (Figure 2).

Maximise

Figure 2 Mr Satyam’s questions about Independence Day.

Do you think you could use this diagram to start students writing on other topics?