ABSTRACT
As we have stressed throughout this volume, we believe writing to be first and foremost a communicative activity. Second, writing is commonly an internally motivated activity; that is, outside the school world, people often write because they believe they have something to say. The teaching of writing in schools, by definition, violates these two constraints. That is, teachers assign writing tasks; the tasks are not internally motivated. Moreover, some tasks that teachers must necessarily assign are not essentially communicative. While we do not condone these artificialities in the various teaching methodologies intended to instruct writing, we recognize that instructional needs may outweigh other considerations. At the same time, we believe that teachers can do much to improve the communicative orientation of even the most mundane writing tasks.
