ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that teachers may be able to provide more effective help for their pupils if they elaborate the task and explicitly at the pre-writing stage, even though this approach may at first be perceived by some readers as being over-directive and didactic. It describes classroom discussion played an important part in the pre-writing preparation of all the main tasks. The pre-writing phase is an important and undervalued part of the total sequence of classroom activities in the teaching of extended writing. Task analysis is one appropriate strategy for teachers to use when they select criteria for success at the pre-writing stage. An alternative and at first perhaps a more accessible strategy is the analysis by the teacher of a written model which has been chosen to exemplify success. In practice, when a traditional stimulus for writing is presented to a class at the pre-writing stage, it becomes an implicit model for children's own writing.
