Writing in a Second Language

In an cited essay, Hairston (1982) asserts that a revolution is taking place in the teaching of compostition, a revolution she characterizes as involving a basic shift in paradigms with regard to the act of composition. Hairston describes the prevailing view of writing, a view that had its orgins in traditional theories of rhetoric, as one that considers writing a linear process in which writers know what they want to say before they begin to write. The major task of the attends to editing concerns in order to perfect the manuscript. Thus the focus of composition instruction in this paradigm is the product that the writer produces.