Writing and Thinking: The Writing Process

I tell my ESL students that good writing starts with thinking--clear and organized thinking. We talk about different methods to organize and focus their thoughts prior to writing, such as brainstorming, listing, clustering, outlining, interviewing, peer-reviewing, and so on. Once they have a clear idea of what they want to write about, and how, the writing part is relatively easy. If they don't really know what they want to write about and what they want to emphasize and focus on, the result will not be good. I read somewhere that "every great thing begins as an idea." It's the same with writing. Great writing begins with great thinking. Or put another way, a piece of writing is no better than the thinking that produced it.

There is another kind of writing called stream-of-consciousness writing, which is basically writing what you are thinking. I'll write a few words about that kind of writing tomorrow.