SEMINAR

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Topic:-

 

 

Writing -Subskills, Mechanics of writing, Characteristics of good handwriting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                prepared By

 

                                                                        Meera Vijayakumar                

                                                                       

             

 

CONTENTS

 

Sl.No.	Topic	Page
1	Introduction	3
2	Writing Skill	4
3	The Process of Writing	5
4	Sub skills of writing	6
5	Mechanics of Writing	7
6	Characteristics of good handwriting	8
7	Importance of good handwriting	8
8	Features of good handwriting	8
9	Methods to develop handwriting	9
10	Conclusion	10
11	Bibliography	11

 

 

 

Introduction

 

            Writing is a productive skill which require the ability to organize the ideas in coherent, correct ad appropriate style or diction Learning to talk is the first step in learning a language and once the child has learned to communicate, writing can be introduced. Writing requires conscious thinking and ordering. Writing a language is much more difficult than speaking a language. A novice writer has to learn how to make things explicit and unambiguous through syntactic arrangement and lexical choice. Expressive writing needs preparation and specialized instruction.

            Writing skill includes the sub-skills of writing, mechanics or writing, good handwriting etc., an effective writing will be the co-ordination of all these. Also, in writing organization plays an important role.

           

 

Writing

           

"Writing skill is the ability to convey ideas and feelings as written material from one person to another person is the most effective manner".

            Writing is not as natural as listening or speaking. It is not considered as biological need. Therefore it has to be purposefully inculcated. Roughly three thousand out of six thousand languages and dialects in the world have no written forms. Therefore there is less scope for a detailed analysis of writing than it has for listening or speaking.  And regarding reading it comes only after writing. If there is no writing, there is no reading. But as teachers of English, we have to give due emphasis to teaching writing skills along with the other major skills of language learning.

            Writing is not restricted to writing on paper only as in the past. Its scope has widened due to the advent of modern information and communication technology. Now we can read written material on the TV screen, Computer screen and take printouts from computers and send e-mails and faxes. Writing is for communication of ideas in written form. It is the visual representation of speech. It is a productive skill. In the hierarchy of language skills it should be given a balanced emphasis along with the other skills.

            In the listening – speaking process, response is immediate, but in the case of writing – reading process the response is remote. Speech has the features of repetition, pause, gestures, and facial expressions, intonation, modulation of voice etc... Since these advantages are not available in writing, other devices have to be used in order to compensate for them. Some of the more obvious devices are: punctuation marks, paragraphing, use of capital or bold letters, underlining, italicizing, use of various sentence connectors, eg; 'therefore', 'however', 'in short', ' in other words ' , 'finally' etc., use of different word order, use of paragraph heading etc. It is therefore apparent that in order to communicate through writing,  one has to learn these conventions besides acquiring the ability to write the letters of the alphabet and spell the words. Further, writing doesn't come under the everyday use of language. Except writers, teachers, journalists etc, others have very few occasions to resort to this much of communication. It is become of these reasons that writing is regarded as the mose difficult language Skill to acquire. 

 

The Process of Writing

           

The process of writing is usually divided in to three stages: Manipulation, Structuring and communication.

Manipulation

            Manipulation consists in the psycho-motor ability to form the letters of the alphabet. This is the most rudimentary stage in writing and for second-language learners it should not pose much of a problem. Even for Indian students whose mother-tongue does not use the Roman alphabet, the task of learning to write the letters should be comparatively easy, for by the time they come to learn English they will have developed sufficient muscle control by writing in their mother tongue.

Structuring

            The second stage, Here the learner is required to organize the letters into words, and the words into phrases and sentences. This will also be comparatively easy if writing is preceded by intensive oral work. In that case the learner has only to  reproduce the words to patterns he has learnt orally.

Communication

             The higher stage in the process of Writing- Like interpretation in reading, in writing, communication is the ultimate goal. At this stage, the writer is able to select the appropriate structures and vocabulary in the overall context of the passage, keeping in view the subject- matter and the audience (ie, the prospective reader). This kind of insight into the working of the language can develop only through long experience, intensive practice, critical study of good writing and through mastery of the various conventions used in written language.

            Development of the skill of writing should therefore proceed progressively through all these three stages ultimately leading to the art of self – expression.

 

 

 

Sub skills of Writing

            One can master writing skill, only if he achieve the various other skills which are most important and relevant in writing. These are the sub-skills of writing writing skill include many sub skills. Anne Raimes gives the following as sub skills of writing.

ü  Mechanics of handwriting, spelling and punctuation.

ü  Word choice ie, Vocabulary, Idiom, Phrase, Tone etc..

ü  Organization ie, ideas, paragraphs, topics, cohesion and unity

ü  Syntax ie, structure and boundaries of sentence, choice of stylistics etc.

ü  Grammar ie, verb agreement, articles, pronouns etc.

ü  Content ie, relevance, Clarity, Originality, logic, sequence etc.

ü   Writing process ie, getting ideas, writing drafts, revising etc.

ü  Purpose ie, the relevance and justification for writing.

      According to David palmes, writing involves Graphics visual, grammatical, Expressive or stylistic, Rhetorical and organizational skills

1.      Graphic or Visual Skills:-

This means writing graphemes (letter of alphabet) in the upper or lower cases (Capital or small letters) as appropriately joined in the conventional way. In spelling, the first language many interfere. In punctuation and capitalization of should be noted that they differ from language to language.

2.      Grammatical Skills:-

This refers to the ability of the student to use a variety of sentence patterns and constructions

3.      Expressive or Stylistic Skills:-

This is the ability of the student to express the same idea in different styles. For this , selection of appropriate words and sentence patterns is necessary for the written medium.

4.      Rhetorical Skills:-

Here the student uses cohesive devices like connectives reference words, ellipsis etc in order to link parts of a text in to logically related sequences.

5.      Organizational Skills:-

In this case the student is concerned with the integration of pieces of information into paragraphs and texts. This involves neglecting irrelevant information and summarizing the relevant ones.

 

Mechanics of Writing

In teaching the mechanics of writing of English alphabet, the teacher has the advantages that his students have learnt it in the process of acquiring their mother tongue, though in a different way. The students now know how to hold the writing materials, at what suitable distance and how the physical posture should be etc.

            A few decades ago four types English alphabet were taught to students the civil round hand and cursive writing (for handwriting), the block capital letters and small letters (for print). But now, for handwriting, only block capital letters and cursive letters (Italic) are being taught and practiced, because that is enough. Italic writing is accepted and instructed in our schools for children’s handwriting with block capital wherever necessary. This mode of writing has serval advantages if it is done in the ideal way. It is legible and clear and writing speed is not curtailed, and the letters consist of strokes and the body of letters has the shape of a right triangle with its angularities removed. One important thing is, in writing the letters should be either vertical or a little slanting towards the right, not slanting to the left. The body of the letters should have uniform size.

            The few other features to be made part of our habit of writing are: letters in words should be distinctive, proper spacing should be given between words (One space), between the ending of a sentence and the beginning of the next (two spaces). Committing mistakes in spelling will be construed badly by the readers. Italic writing as described above can be made perfect by practice for a few days and speed can be increased.

 

Characteristics of Good Handwriting

            We should be seriously aware that one’s writing is either for oneself two be read later or for others to be read sooner or later and also to be preserved for the posterity. If these important purpose have to be fully served, our handwriting, or if it is in print, the printed text, should have some qualities regarding readability.

Importance of Good Handwriting

o   Good handwriting is generally considered as a mirror of good culture. It does not mean calligraphy (Artistic writing)

o   Good handwriting promotes better readability and comprehension without giving room for dubious situation.

o   Good handwriting is naturally in direct proportion to other language abilities.

o   From handwriting, a person’s character can be presumed to a considerable extent.

o   In written examinations, good handwriting really impresses the examiner; thereby the examinee will be getting credit.

To have acquired a good handwriting is a privilege

 

Features of good handwriting

·         Distinctiveness:-         Each letter in a word and each word in a sentence will be distinct.

·         Spacing: -       There will be a space between words and two between sentences. To begin with a new paragraph a line is left.

·         Size of the letters:-     The body and stroke of the letters are uniform for small letters and capital letters. At the beginning of learning to write , the size may be exaggerated;  in normal adult writing proper size is important

·         Simplicity: -    A good handwriting is simple and comfortable to see and easy to read. By simplicity it means there is no ornamentation which makes reading difficult.

·         Horizontality: -          Writing lines is conspicuously horizontal. In the early stage students may be allowed to write on lined paper- double lined or four lined.

·         Vertical / Slanting towards the right:-         Letters are to be written either vertically or slightly slanting to the right, never to the left.

·         Punctuation Marks:- Punctuation marks are necessary at the early stage especially, to read by phrases and to get the meaning easily and unequivocally. Punctuation marks include capitalization, full stop, comma, Semi colon, colon, question mark, exclamation mark, inverted commas, apostrophe etc. In modern writing forms there is a trend of reducing punctuation marks. In such cases readability and comprehensibility will not be hindered, if meaningful phases are recognized.

 

 

Methods to develop handwriting

o   The best influence is derived from teacher’s handwriting so teacher’s handwriting should be a model to the students.

o   Regular writing exercise should be given.

o   Italic writing should be practiced.

o   In a week, a period should be there for teaching and practicing good handwriting.

o   Frequent competition in handwriting will provide encouragement

o   Posture, holding of the writing material, the distance of paper or blackboard are important features to be considered.

 

CONCLUSION

 

Writing is a complex process that allows writer to explore thoughts and ideas, and makes them visible and concrete. In the mechanics of writing good handwriting posses an important role. The most important thing to remember when writing is to check it thoroughly when it is completed. This unwritten rule holds true for everything we write.

In the hierarchy of language skills writing should be given a balanced emphasis along with other skills. There is no mystery to good writing. It is a skill that we can learn. The more we write the more fluent your writing will be. Therefore read more.... write more...... and put your work to others.

 

Bibliography

 

·         Baruah, T.C (1984). The English Teacher’s Hand book-Sterling publishers Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi.

·         Dr.Sivarajan, K, T.V. Ramakrishnan, K. Mridula (2007). English Language Education, Calicut University.

·         Communication Skills in English (1982), Oxford University press (edited), Walton Street.

·         Viswanath, Harsha (2013). English Languages Teaching Approaches and skills. Department of English, M.S.M. College, Kayamkulam

Webliograpy

·         www.kent.ac.uk/.../ written communication .