Students become authors : A course in Advanced Writing employing expressivist theory and pedagogy

The first main assignment required in the first six weeks of Writing II class was designed on the expressivist approach. The article provides an actual class realization when the assignment was given to a group of thirty, English-major students at one Jordanian university. Those six weeks were a mixture of hard work, complaint, excitement, and actual texts produced. An overview of the theoretical basis on which the assignment was built is provided followed by a quick account of how the class was conducted employing expressivist pedagogy. At the end of the sixth week, students were asked to write a one-page journal entry to reflect on and evaluate their writing experience. The article tries to analyze this journal entry to uncover what students learned from doing the assignment and how they evaluated their learning. Analysis reveals that students achieved firsthand knowledge of the writing process and the requirements needed to develop readable effective texts. They finished the assignment believing that they had high potentials, that they could produce texts of good quality and with purpose—just like real writers. In other words, they could write; they could become authors.


INTRODUCTION
The study adopts the qualitative methods, particularly what is widely known and accepted as class/teacher research.The article mainly reports a teacher's attempt to understand what works and how it works in a writing class with a group of thirty students at one Jordanian university in the first semester of the academic year 2009-2010.It provides an actual class realization of the first six weeks of the semester.Those six weeks were dedicated to the first required main assignment designed on the expressivist theories.
Writing II class was run as a writing workshop in which students worked individually and collaborated among themselves and with their teacher to produce authentic, effective texts.The subjective/expressivist and the dialectical/social-critical were the two approaches used in the design and teaching of the class, in which the assignment described and analyzed in this article was a main requirement.The expressivist approach started in the 1960s and was dominant in the 1970s and 1980s in American college writing classes.It is still a strong direction in the teaching of writing as many teachers, theorists and practitioners strongly defend it.The second (the social-critical) started in the mid-eighties, flourished in the nineties, and has continued in the twenty-first century as an approach of cultural-criticism in the teaching of writing.

Composition studies and ESL writing: Background
Several composition scholars refer the birth of Composition Studies to the sixties of the twentieth century.It was not, however, until early in the eighties that Composition stepped into maturity and was fully recognized as a separate academic discipline.In the nineteen eighties, Language Clinics changed in many American Universities into Writing Centers; more and more English departments started to offer graduate programs in composition and rhetoric.That was also the decade during which many specialized (peerreviewed/refereed) journals were established in the discipline (e.g., Rhetoric Review, Pre/Text: A Journal of Rhetorical Theory, The Writing Center Journal, Written Communication, Journal of Advanced Composition (now JAC: Journal of Composition Studies), Journal of Computers and Composition); that is in addition to the well-recognized College Composition and Communication since 1949 and College English which began to publish more and more articles in composition (Peer-reviewed journals were a sign that English departments were hiring more tenure-track writing professors).Above all, the eighties was the decade when affiliation with a school of thought or an approach to teaching writing became a tradition among professors of English.Scholars of Composition Studies generally agree on the existence of at least four major schools of thought/ approaches to teaching writing: subjective (variously referred to as expressivist, expressionistic or personal), experimental (known as the cognitivist), dialectical (differently referred to as social/transactional/critical), in addition to the much condemned objectivist (widely known as current-traditional; for details on these approaches to the teaching of writing, see the reviews done by Bizzell (1986), Berlin (1987) and North (1987.)The three main approaches (the subjective, the experimental and the dialectical) share a consensus over the importance of shifting the writing teacher's focus from evaluating the product produced by students to working with students on the processes and activities needed to make such a product possible, or what has come to be called the process paradigm in the teaching of composition.
ESL/EFL writing has never been easy to teach.Teachers have to worry about too many things in addition to the actual goal of the writing class: having students engaged in real acts of making meaning in order to compose fresh texts which communicate real purposes to readers.Pedagogies based on the process approach to Omari 283 the teaching of writing have found their ways to the ESL/EFL writing classes as early as the 1960s of the twentieth century (Reid, 1993, pp. 31-32).Many instructors involve their students in some pre-writing activities such as brain storming, free-writing and/or journal writing before they start to write an actual draft, a draft that is submitted to several revising techniques and rewriting processes.Students come to writing classes at the university with almost no experience in academic writing-except writing answers learnt from studied materials to exam questions.It has been a challenge to work with students who believe that they could not write, and who do not care much about learning how to write.Over the years, the author insisted on teaching students and helping them see how they could learn and use writing to achieve their own academic and non-academic goals.For this purpose, the subjective expressivist approach to the teaching of writing has proved to be very helpful and fruitful.

The study
The writing class (ENG206: Writing II) in the first semester of 2009/2010 was taught to a group of thirty students.Given students' lack of experience with matters of writing, the class syllabus and curriculum was accordingly crafted to help them create a feeling of trust in their own potential abilities as writers.The class design and structure intended to help students become more comfortable with writing.The main assignments allowed them a less formal writing space in which to experiment with voice, giving details, expressing opinions and forming arguments.The class was designed to follow the paradigm shift in composition classes, and adopt Donald Murray's admonition (1968) of initiating students into the writing process by having them go through the experience of working as real authors do.Students were encouraged to feel like real authors of books who wish to present something of value to their readers.The main objective was to produce confident writers who were capable of forming and articulating logical points-of-view in a way that most readers could understand.
The assignment described and analyzed in this paper was the first required main assignment and designed on the expressivist theories.The following sections include a quick review of the main theoretical and pedagogical basics of the expressivist approach/school based on which the assignment was designed.

Theoretical Foundations: Expressivist Approach-A brief overview
It is widely accepted that the expressivist approach is the most widespread poststructural approach in the teaching of college composition.Despite all the criticism that has been launched against it, it is still strongly practiced and defended.Major names of expressivists such as D. Gordon Rohman, Ken Macrorie, Donald Murray, Peter Elbow, Toby Fulwiler, and Ann Berthoff are hard not to recognize in the history of Composition Studies.Both theorists and teachers of composition never fail to reinvent the ways in which they use the basics of this approach in their classrooms.
In the 1970s, the circulation of the findings of psycholinguistics about language processes and development in the academia either coincided with or helped the rise of the expressivist approach in Composition Studies and paved the way for another major movement in the fieldcognitive research trend.These two movements (expressivist and cognitivist) instituted the language and practice of the trend known as the process approach or 'teaching writing-as-a-process' paradigm.In addition, Berlin (1987) and Gere (1986) agree that the revival of classical rhetoric (and the concept of pathos) in the fifties and sixties of the twentieth century was an important factor that encouraged the spread of expressivist practices.The other origin of the expressivist movement was said to be in Dewey's progressive education with its emphasis on learners' experience and motivation.

PEDAGOGY ENCOURAGED BY EXPRESSIVISTS: STUDY METHODOLOGY
To begin with, expressivist rhetoric defends the importance of freeing students' imagination, tolerating the disorderliness of individual searches for meaning.It gives power to personal voices and encourages the creative abilities of all students.The expressivists believe that writing is an art and the best way of learning it is by doing.There is no way that students will write better texts unless they actually engage in the process of producing texts and go through all the stages that established writers experience when they write.The goal of the composition class for the expressivists is, then, not to teach students how to write (because writing cannot be taught) but to allow them to write and express themselves.In this way, writing becomes a process of discoveryboth of ideas and of the writer's self.The teacher's role is to support students' motivation and to provide the appropriate safe environment where students feel confident of the validity of their thoughts.The pedagogy encouraged by this rhetorical theory, consequently, revolves around three vital activities: the search for original meaning through free writing, the keeping of a journal, and participation in peer editorial groups.
These pedagogies have altered the teacher's function in the classroom.Teachers have come to see their roles as knowledgeable collaborators and participants in the writing workshop.In his 1973 Writing Without Teachers, Peter Elbow, the pioneer expressivist, adapted the stages of Piaget's model of cognitive development to fit a growth figure of writing as organic (see pages 42-47).Elbow insisted that a piece of writing, like a baby and all other living organisms, starts in the infancy stage and goes through a process of growing and refinement until it reaches maturity-the stage when the piece comes very close to saying what the writer has originally intended to say.To reach this stage of maturity, Elbow outlined a plan that starts with 'free writing' and ends with severe, conventional editing.This growth figure has resulted in the articulation of the process of writing constituting the stages of pre-writing, writing, and rewriting.
In the prewriting stage, students engage in different brainstorming activities that might include meditation, group discussions, free writing, and the keeping of journals.The notion of free writing is particularly basic to the expressivist writing class.Elbow calls for liberating students from artificial conditions and to set them free to express themselves in a way that will help them develop their own personalities and affirm their self-realization.The idea here is to give students time to write freely anything and everything that comes to mind.Forcing students to start writing and continue writing for ten or fifteen minutes nonstop, Elbow's instructions were: "start writing and keep writing" (Elbow, 1973, p. 25).In the early stage of writing, the writer should "shut off" the editor and write continuously whatever comes to mind for "enough time to get tired and get into" the topic.Elbow says that the writer at this stage, writes for the 'garbage can' in order to allow ideas to grow naturally.The other goal of free writing is to build an emotional relation with the topic, to reach the state when the writer "can feel it in [the] stomach and arms and jaw" (p.27).
Instead of the orderly plan or outline students were required to start from, Elbow, Murray, Macrorie, Berthoff and other expressivists called upon composition teachers to allow their students 'chaotic beginnings' to experiment with thoughts and language.Free writing led to the idea of Journal writing.Journals are intended to be places where students explore their inner worlds with regard to a topic before they start refining their ideas for a draft.Journal writing for Elbow has no rules except to start writing and continue writing.
The other pedagogical technique that expressionist adopted (in addition to freewriting/ journal-writing)-and which still lives prosperously in composition classes today-is the use of the peerresponse groups.Students in the expressivist writing class are encouraged to share their writing with other students to get feedback.As different students may have varied learning experiences, they will benefit from each other's skills and knowledge.To prevent possible undesirable reactions from students, expressivists developed certain basic outlines to teach students how to respond to their classmates' writings.Examples of these criteria include: never quarrel with someone else's reaction; give specific reactions to specific parts of the text in question; remember that no reaction is a wrong reaction, and that advice and evaluation have no value; remember that theories are less important than facts; remember that you are always right and always wrong; do not reject what readers tell you, etc.
Peer-response practice led to developing the notion of writing groups that work inside and outside the classroom in which students exchange writings and feedback with the least interference from the teacher.The teacher in the writing-group based class is more of a coordinator than a traditional teaching figure.Peerresponse and writing-groups are the bases of the new 'writingworkshop class' that distinguishes the recent history of Composition Studies from all traditional approaches.And, the whole notion of collaborative writing came from peer-response and the writingworkshop class.
As it will become clear in the following sections, these (providing safe environment to help students feel, think and write, free/journalwriting, peer/group-response practice, in addition to the explanation and exploration of the three-stage prewriting-writing-rewriting process) were the main pedagogies implemented in the Writing-II class in which the assignment described and analyzed here was a main requirement.

Class and students
In an institution, ENG206: Writing II was a second-year major requirement for all students of English Language and Literature in the College of Arts and for students of English Teacher Education in the College of Education.ENG206 class in the first semester of 2009/2010 had thirty students, 24 girls and 6 boys, who came from different parts of the country.All were third and fourth year English majors, some graduates in their last semester at the university.Though the class was a second year requirement, students could take it in any semester during their four-year study.Many of them delayed taking it until later in their program to ensure they were proficient enough in English.All students had finished classes in skills, linguistics, and literature.Some had failed a couple of courses in their first and second year or just barely passed in several classes.Stunned by the seriousness of their program requirements, students got into a habit of complaining, but working harder to pass classes and keep their seats.They started to understand, by the time they came into the author's class, the nature of their situation and the requirements of their program.Most of them were very serious in attending classes and doing assignments.All finished ENG106: Writing 1 (Paragraph Development)-some with the author (studied modes of academic discourse), others in different classes (studied a textbook with a mixture of grammar, reading, and writing exercises).All thirty students were serious about finishing class successfully-they did not want to sit in it again.A few were enthusiastic who had asked other students, liked the ideas, and prepared for the class before they enrolled in it.

Course description and syllabus
The formal ENG206-Writing II-course description stated that the class "should introduce students to and have them practice the art of writing the essay [ added here: "and longer authentic texts"] in English".The syllabus was planned to familiarize students with the several steps and stages writers go through when producing a text.In other words, it was designed to develop student authors, or at least students who understand how authors work to produce authentic texts.The class was run in the form of a writing workshop in which students learned and practiced prewriting activities of rehearsal, discussions, and free writing in addition to drafting, revising, editing and rewriting.
The format of the English academic essay was taught and practiced.In addition to essays, the syllabus required that students write two main assignments called books: a personal narrative book (based on the expressivist approach), and a group, communityinquiry book (based on the social-critical approach).The personal book (the focus of this article) was a kind of analytic descriptive narrative of a personal experience: something that happened with the student her/himself.It was required to be 10-typed pages of coherent, well-connected ideas, presented in clear language.The book was given the First Exam grade (20 points) and was due by the end of the sixth week in the semester.The second main assignment was the group book which could not be shorter than 20 typed pages and was given the Second Exam grade (20 points).It was due by the end of the twelfth week in the semester.
In addition to these two major assignments, students wrote five short essays during the semester, and a number of journal entries (all were given 20 points).They were also asked to sit for a final exam (30 points) in which they were asked to write one short essay and one short journal entry on topics provided on the exam day.Ten points of the total grade were given to class participation, involvement in work and discussions, and attendance.Students had to attend individual and group writing conferences with the teacher to discuss their work.
Most of the work and writing happened outside class time.In class they were often made to get into peer-response groups of two Omari 285 and three to discuss their writing and share experience.Often, individual students were asked to share part of their writing with the whole class to discuss, revise and evaluate.The course was condensed and seemed to be a little too demanding for inexperienced student-writers.But with encouragement, a bit of enforcement, and heightened teachers' involvement, students became engaged and active producers of texts.Keeping the level of motivation high was an issue to be addressed in a variety of ways throughout the semester.Most students got excited as they were producing their original texts.

Details of everyday class-dynamics
First class.The syllabus was given and the required work was discussed with the students, explaining to them the two main jobs (books) they were expected to accomplish throughout the semester.Students-having no real experience of doing actual writing in which they created knowledge before this class-thought the class to be too demanding for them.They thought the assignments to be new and innovative but a bit too advanced for them.They modeled Sally Chandler's assertion that "[s]tudent fear and loss of confidence are perennial issues in composition classrooms" (2007, p. 60).As the class needed a lot of hard work, students needed to be assured that they could do the required writing-and actually enjoy doing it-if they follow the instructions and do their work faithfully.And, it was a blessing to notice in that first class how a positive psychological notion started to build in the students.They actually liked the fact that they were expected to do hard work and that they had the ability to accomplish the job.They liked to feel that they did have potentials and that their teacher believed in them.
In that first class, details were given about the first book and how to choose appropriate topics.Students were asked to choose a personal experience, explaining in details why a personal topic was the right choice for that first book ever in their lives.Then, they were given some hints of what to think of-an important event, a change of life, or a goal that shaped their life.They were to decide on their book topic on that first day.A couple of students immediately announced what they wanted to write about.They were asked questions (with the rest of students listening) and helped to develop the idea for their books.Such interaction gave an example to the others of the type of things they could write about and how to go about it.
Students were told to force themselves to decide on the topic that same day so that before coming to class the following lecture, they must have settled with the topic and be ready to start their worktheir actual book-writing.Following Peter Elbow's approach in his Writing Without Teachers, they were told to decide on the topic and force themselves to write about it and not to let anything disturb or stop them while writing before going to bed that night.They were encouraged to write freely without paying any attention to language, grammar or the logic of what they would write in order to see if they really felt comfortable with the chosen topic, and if they could write the whole book on it.They were asked to bring what they could write with them to the following class.Then-in the last ten minutes of that first class-they were told how to do the journals.Any topic and every topic could be a good subject for a journal entry.They needed to start their journals the second week of classes in the semester.
Second class.The mood was a mixture of complaint, moaning, encouragement and forced writing.Most of the students came without having written anything-but had roughly decided on their possible topics.Each individual student was asked to announce to the whole class their topics.The author discussed with a few what they would include in the book and how they would do it.This helped the undecided students to make up their minds and settle with a topic.Students were then given ten minutes to write anything that may come to their minds related to their topics.They were asked to have by the end of the ten minutes at least two to three hand-written pages on their chosen topic.Under close observation, students did try to write, but many complained that they did not know where to start or how to begin.The answer was simply to: "begin from the beginning."They were directed to start naturally where their story started in their lives and then to follow the events taking lead from the time sequence in which the events happened.They did not need to worry too much about how to begin as each story could have many different beginnings, and they could decide to change the beginning point of their story later on in the course of their actual writing.It was also made clear that no one would know the beginning of their stories except themselves because each one of them was the only one in the class (or maybe in the world) who knew when, how, where his/her story began.
After ten minutes, they were asked to take a break in which we talked about the idea of free writing as introduced and discussed by Peter Elbow.The idea was basically about how to let one-self go on writing freely without stopping like a person going on a sea voyage, with no particular end in mind at the start point and to let the piece or the story find its own way.Elbow called this practice the openended writing process.With time and revisions, the piece of writing would develop what Elbow called "a center of gravity" (1973, p. 35).Then students were asked if they wanted to discuss more ideas about writing, or continue writing in their books.Most voted to continue writing, saying they had things to write and they did not want to lose their ideas.
Before the end of that second meeting, the class discussed the importance of writing as a way of self-expression.It was emphasized how each one of the students was the sole authority on her/his topic.The meaning of the word AUTHOR-as a term connected to the notion of AUTHORITY-was explained to them.Discussion focused on what it meant to establish and keep authority/control, both over topic and readers.It was emphasized that writing was a natural act because every person had things to say, and that any written piece no matter how formal or academic should eventually convey the writer's knowledge, thinking and feeling as a way to affect an intended audience.On top of all, it was made clear how affecting readers would mean making these readers see, feel and believe; giving them the chance to share the author's knowledge, experience and understanding of the world/topic.To do so, that is, to affect readers, writing needed to fulfill three conditions: to be authentic, honest and telling.Towards the end of the class, we reflected on why a personal narrative seemed to be the right place for inexperienced writers to begin practicing and establishing authority through the power of expression.Students were asked to continue writing at home and to bring with them at least five hand-written pages to the next class.This discussion of authorship and the work of authors were interesting, insightful and energizing to the students and it helped them to see their position in relation to what they were writing.
Third class.All students had started their writing and they were settled with their chosen topics.They were told to use the first thirty minutes of class to write in their books.It was emphasized that they should not stop for any reason.They were directed not to read what they were writing.They had to keep their hands moving with the pen to the very last minute of the time given.They were not to think of introductions, organization, grammar, or language.They only needed to think of writing what happened in their stories.They would have enough time to worry about everything after reaching the end and starting the revising processes.They were reminded of the time and that it was going fast because the due date was final.All students used the time to write and got very much invested in the work; they wrote very seriously.Many of them seemed to enjoy it.They did not want to be interrupted and actually took the whole class time doing writing.Before the end of the class, the author told them that she let them fool her and write the whole class, which we would not be able to do again.They found this experience (forced writing inside class) helpful.They were asked to bring with them to the next class at least 10 to 15 hand-written pages.
Individual writing conferences were set.Each student was assigned a time of fifteen-to-twenty minutes to come to the office to discuss her/his story and writing processes.During the writing conference, most students expressed their satisfaction with the work they were doing.Many of them had questions, and some expressed fears and worries about time, the value of their narratives, and the quality of their writing.Those conferences were reassuring to the author as well as to the students.Extra measures were taken to help them feel comfortable discussing their topics, their writing processes and the problems they faced.Four students were not yet sure they wanted to continue with their narratives.The conversation helped them make the final decision.Other students had questions about the structure of the text and paragraphing.Ten students expressed worries about their language difficulties and asked for advice to overcome them.The level of commitment students showed during these conferences was highly astonishing and pleasing.
Fourth class.Many students were asked to write like in the previous class.They said they found themselves very productive when they wrote inside class.The first half hour of class time was given.Then, there was a vote.Half of them wanted to write and the other half wanted to discuss ideas and ask questions.They were given some explanation on how to start revising their ideas to check whether they were complete ideas and would make sense to their readers.Each group was allowed to do what they needed.One group immediately started to write.The other group was asked to work in pairs, discussing and developing what they had written, and to ask questions if they needed help while the teacher was going between them.Starting from this point in the semester, the job of the teacher running the class became not to instruct, but to clearly redefine and stay in the role of a coach and advisor.As Christine Love Thompson admonished, "when instructing students in writing, we shouldn't be teachers.We should be guides, facilitators, and co-writers.By stepping out of the teacher role and giving students control, we ensure that individuality, creativity, and student voices are heard" (2011, p. 61).
The teacher had only to interfere and impose on individual students and groups to make sure they were all engaged in the right tasks.It was made clear to them that they were in full charge of their writing.They were encouraged to ask questions and demand help whenever they needed.
Fifth class.Immediately from the beginning, students asked to be given the time: some wanted to continue writing; others had made arrangements among themselves to work together on revising ideas.That class was so vibrant.The teacher had no place in it; she spent the whole class watching and trying to steal hearing some of what they were discussing among themselves.They were loud discussing ideas-some Arabic words could be heard now and then.They were unaware of the teacher's presence.They seemed to be much taken by the task and looked serious doing the job.Despite the several attempts to interrupt them, they wanted to continue.One student said, "Doctorah, don't worry.I will give you a complete book on the due date.Just give us the time; we need it."It seemed like for the first time in their lives, they discovered that they could write and that they had things to say and share with othersthings that had meaning.The only choice was to leave them alone to do it the way they needed.Class time ended; they did not pay attention.The teacher stole out of the room and quietly closed the door behind her.No one saw her leave.
Classes Six to Eight.The sixth class was almost the same as the fifth.But the last 15 min of class time was a general talk about the whole process of them writing the book.Most students sounded more confident to have it done but some were a bit behind in their writing because they wrote only in class.Students were encouraged and told that they needed to have it down on paper by the following week because they would start to work on revising, correcting and rewriting what they had written.And so the following class sessions went on between writing, complaining, encouraging, asking questions, raising problems, sharing parts of what they had written until they actually finished the first draft by the end of the fourth week.In those class sessions, it was a blessing to watch students involved in real acts of making meaning.Instead of moaning and complaining, many of them asked practical questions.
The process of producing a complete first draft took eight class sessions of work over four weeks.For about half an hour and sometimes longer the teacher almost had no real work to do in class.Students were deeply involved in their writing/revising, and did not want any to disturb them.Very often in those classes, they used her as a moving dictionary.When she was passing near Iman's seat, she looked up at her and, without thinking, hesitation or any introductions, asked: "What is /za3laneh/ in English?" -"Angry or sad," the teacher said.-"Yes!Yes! Angry," she said, "but if a … a lot?" -"Furious!?" -"aywah!" (Jordanian slang for "exactly") And she sank back over her notebook, continued writing, too busy to say thank you, as if nobody was there at all.
Classes Nine to Twelve.Then, in class nine, with a complete first draft at hand, the class started revising-sometimes as a whole group, often in pairs, and some insisted on doing it alone and only asked their teacher or their friends questions when they needed.Some students were asked to read loud one part of their texts to the class.And everybody worked on developing ideas, making sure they were complete and made sense to readers, checking relations between ideas and parts of the story, establishing order and organization in the text, in addition to checking form and language points such as paragraphing, choice of vocabulary, grammar especially the use of narrative (past) tenses, spelling and punctuation.Class number twelve in the semester-the last class in the sixth week-one student was absent [[She came two hours after class time to the office, with her book at hand, almost crying with apologies.It was out of her control as she had no personal computer and the bookshop which typed the book for her were not punctual and delayed her]]; twenty-nine students brought their books, neatly typed and published.They were asked to hold the books high at the same time and to look around and see the class books.They were happy!Books collected, students were made to take fifteen minutes to write a one-page journal entry in which they were instructed to critically reflect on and evaluate their experience writing that first book.On that day, the status of the class with those student writers seemed bright.With this much of excitement in that class period, number twelve in the semester, the class started discussing the second assignment-the community inquiry book.The teacher left the classroom on that day carrying more than four hundred pages (most narratives were longer than the ten-page minimum limit) of students writing to check, correct, respond to, and evaluate.she was happy-just like her students-but at the same time overwhelmed by the heavy load she was carrying.

RESULTS, DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS
The necessary arrangements were made, and reading started.Amazing was the fact that students who were sure they were not writers had actually done the work of authors: clear writings, powerful stories, compelling feelings and thoughtful reflections.It was delightful to read through and see how the ultimate goal of teaching writing-to help student-writers develop that particular "sense of agency and ownership" (Rogers, 2011, p. 133)-materialized in most of those narratives.
True! Most texts had grammar, punctuation and spelling mistakes, but the ideas were clear enough not only to understand the stories but to enjoy and be affected by reading them.In the process, the author had to let go a little on language correctness.she totally agrees with Christine Thompson who learned from her classes that "focusing too much on correct grammar and spelling stifles students' voice in their writing" (2011, p. 57).The author often asked herself the same question Thompson asked: "what kind of writing teacher would I be if I let students leave mistakes in their papers?"The author had to take charge and decide her priorities: correct Grammar or effective Writing?Did she want her students to produce the regular "mutt genres" Elizabeth Wardle described?Genres, she said, "that do not respond to rhetorical situations requiring communication in order to accomplish a purpose that is meaningful to the author" (2009, p. 777).Or did she want them to produce real pieces with authentic voice and communicative purpose?Her choices were clear.

Topics and stories: A telling example
The stories/topics students wrote ranged from sad events, to happy occasions, to failures in some life endeavors, to having fun, to wrong doings and regrets, to important turns in personal lives, to silly things.They were all personal, and each reflected a personality that was striving to reach a point of culmination of success/ happiness or failure/pain.Some stories presented the formation of a character learning and changing because of what happened.Other stories showed a discovery, an understanding, or a point of making peace with what happened.The stories were good!Honest!Telling!Full of real life!Muna wrote about her neighbor, classmate and friend, whom she called the Dove and who died in cancer when they were in the eleventh grade.She ended the story saying that she bought a couple of doves which she kept and took care of.Every morning she would hear the sound of the doves in her room to assure herself that Hadeel, her friend, was still remembered.That last sentence of the book was the first and only mention of the friend's real name: "Hadeel".The title of her book was "The Sound of Doves," the literal translation of the name Hadeel in English-Imagine!The idea just didn't occur to the author before reading that last sentence.she couldn't help tears.When the student was later asked her about it, she explained that she planned to do it in this manner on the day when in class seven the discussion was about building suspense and how to avoid saying things too soon in the narrative because they might ruin the story for the reader.
In her journal entry, Muna talked about how good it was to be able to express feelings that she "can't talk about".She talked in details about her worries that her "writing maybe misunderstood" or if others "can't understand" it as she wanted.She intended "to express feelings" because readers "must live with writer's feeling, thought, and events."She said, "I tried to make my writing expressive to make [the] readers live the story."She was worried that she might have forgotten "details that readers need to understand."She now knew how "hard and beautiful" it felt to be a writer.
As such, Muna summarized in her one-page journal entry all which her teacher wished to teach students about writing and the job of the writer.She felt great responsibility towards her readers.It was not possible for the teacher to have thought of a way to raise her audience awareness to the level she expressed.She felt responsible for her ideas, the effect to be created, the language used, and above all how to be true/honest to the story she was telling.She finished her journal saying that it was a "big responsibility: to be honest."Muna, without knowing anything about theories or theorists of composition, summarized what Johanna Rogers sees to be "a strong consensus among theorists regarding how they would like to see students position themselves in relationship to academic writing, namely with responsibility and engagement" (2011, p. 133).

Points included in students' journals
In the journal entry students wrote in class session number twelve, they reflected on their writing experience.They clearly revealed their understanding of the job they were doing-writing to achieve a purpose and affect readers-and expressed their excitement about having done the job.Many of them talked about the benefits they gained, about the challenges they faced, and also about how they never thought they could write in English that much or as such.Twenty five students of the thirty mentioned personal benefits and gains they felt they had achieved as a result of having written the book.Those benefits ranged from psychological/ emotional gains, to self-confidence, to gaining knowledge, to developing skills of using sources, to learning how to manage time and give priorities.Students talked about how writing the assignment affected their personality: they became more thoughtful and aware of their inner selves, more attentive to understanding others and more articulate in expressing their feelings and thoughts.
Expressing feelings.Like Muna, Ten students expressed their excitement about being able to express feelings they did not know how to talk about before they wrote the book.For these students, writing the personal book was therapeutic, a cure for psychological and social complexities they may have been suffering from because of certain personal private histories.Students in their journal confirmed ideas similar to the findings of Pennebaker and Seagal that "Writing about important personal experiences in an emotional way … brings about improvements in mental and physical health" (1999, p. 1243).They seemed to have developed the "ability to generate new ways of thinking about emotions, cognitive processing, and health" (Smyth and Pennebaker, 2008, p. 6).
Students used the words "happy," and "comfortable" to describe their satisfaction.Dhuha was happy as she discovered that writing was a good way to express if she could not express in speech while Safa's "nice experience in writing" made her "so happy" and felt that she loved her father (the topic of her book) more because writing about him made her discover how he was a "gift" in her life.On the other hand, Majed, who wrote about a blind classmate, said: "At the end of writing I found myself love this world because I wrote about this friend; it changed my way of seeing others." Self-confidence: achievement.It was clear that writing the personal book boosted students' self-esteem and self-confidence.Twenty-four of the thirty students felt that writing the book was an achievement that made them proud of themselves because they were able to do such a demanding work of authoring.Like the students of Goodburn and Camp, they "wrote glowingly" about their experience and "felt ownership and pride " (2004, p. 95).Iman said she was not only proud but elated for having "tried to achieve something very big like a personal book."She continued, "Really I achieved the book.I can write a book….I succeeded."Yousef said it was good to feel that he "could do something and was able to let people know" that he did.Inas, who felt "so proud" of herself, felt that it was "fantastic … to write and let people feel with you."Islam J. summarized it all: "I felt that I achieved something and not anything, but something different and new….I think that it is a big work."It is this sense of achievement which they all shared and tried to express.For the first time in their lives, they had been able to produce in writing something that can (even if symbolically) be called a book.Developing Writers Gaining Knowledge.Like the students of Sally Chandler, my students revealed in their journal "a narrative analysis of their development as writers " (2004, p. 59).Twenty three students said in one way or another that they were learning and gaining knowledge despite the fact that they were writing about something personal from their lives.They expressed certain ideas related to their awareness of different writing processes that were related to presenting and developing ideas, creating needed effect, revising language, grammar, and the choice of words in addition to developing skills of using sources and managing their time.Twenty one of them said that they came to understand how authors write and the kind of suffering they go through to produce readable texts.Rasha discovered that she needed to "work hard" because authors write "something good that makes effect on readers."Five students (Aseel, Alaa, Sawsan, Su'ad, and Asia) found problems deciding their "beginnings" or "starting point", but once started, they found "information flowing" and, as Sawsan said, they "could describe, narrate, [and] create suspense." Thirteen students (Aseel, Alaa', Sawsan, Su'ad, Seham, Asia, Tamadhur, Iman, Sufyan, Kawther, Reem, Nasreen, and Husam) described how they worked with ideas in the process of writing.They mentioned deleting details and adding others while trying to decide as Su'ad said "what to write and what not".Like authors, their decisions of which details to include were based on two main factors.One, as Asia said, they "tried to be effective".And second, they had to make tough decisions on "which is important and which is not," in the words of Su'ad.This resulted in deleting many personal details (Tamadhur) while at the same time trying to express events in clear statement (Sawsan).Some felt angry because the process "needed a lot of time" (Sufyan, Islam H.) while others were satisfied as it resulted with a "more related and expressive" text (Kawther).
Students also talked of organizing ideas and dividing the text into paragraphs (Nasreen, Su'aad), paying attention to "time order and the sequence of events" (Iman, Kawther) and relating "the event or actions with each other" (Reem).Students experienced first-hand both the joys and disappointments of the process of authoring.Islam H., who "felt angry" because "the doctor ordered to write enough details" when she thought she had written everything, "found many mistakes" when she "started to make revisions," and had to "revise ideas, theme and everything" several times to make sure her text honestly conveyed what she intended to say.In the same way, Kawther read repeatedly "to check the relatedness of the events and added some tiny details".Above all, Reem suffered because she often felt that she could "express the idea in Arabic more beautiful and better than English."She said, "I worked hard to convey my messages: I started to collect my ideas in draft….At the end, I found … I can write in English language in … a good manner."She was aware of her writing processes and that she was actually improving her skills.
Developing Skills: Using Sources.It is tempting to say that students could make a leap in their ability to use English-the foreign language-to communicate a desired message effectively and thoughtfully.In the revising processes, they learned to use available sources.One important source was the dictionary to check meanings of words they did not know or words they were not sure of as well as to check spelling.Tamadhur "found problems in … choosing vocabulary" and had to frequently revise.Likewise, Iman focused on "revising everything and looking up some words in the dictionary".In this way, Sawsan found that in the process she learned new words.And, Kawther talked of editing "the lexical choices to make the book more effective for the reader."Nahar, who was surprised she could write, found she "had difficulty in vocabulary" because she knew few and "simple" words.So, she started memorizing "new words every day to use in writing."It was difficult but she was interested "in doing the job." Other sources were their grammar books and punctuation manuals.Sufyan found that writing made him give all his attention to everything.He said, "It was a difficult experience that needed … to be careful about the structure of every sentence."Kanary was worried about her grammar which forced her to revise more than one time.Alaa', who talked in details about problems, "discovered grammar errors that made reading not interesting."Asia "tried to be effective" by correcting grammatical mistakes, and reading to check the errors of printing.Tamadhur "found problems in grammar" and had to frequently revise.Every time she revised it, she found mistakes and had to do more work.Iman in the process, found that she "became very careful about spelling and grammar" because she "wanted it to be excellent work."Nasreen consulted her grammar book to correct mistakes.Husam was bothered by problems in "using punctuation marks" and worked hard on them because he wanted his book "to be done in a good way like the author."WhenIslam H. "started to make revisions," she "found many mistakes" and had to "revise language… and punctuation."Fahed described how, while revising, he "put the dictionary and other necessary books of grammar, and a manual of punctuation" beside him.For DHuha and Fadwa, taking care of language and grammar was a main difficulty.Generally speaking, students became aware of the importance of good language to convey a message and create the needed effects.Leena said that she used her knowledge to write and correct language because she wanted to "make it beautiful … to make [the] book readable".She confirmed that in the process, her "writing became better."As such students tried to achieve the highest success, still, they reflected excellent results in language learning.
A third source some students used while revising was other people or readers to double check language, details and effects.Several students mentioned having "friends read it" to guarantee achieving the highest success.Iman, who was happy she succeeded in writing the book, made all her friends read it and was happy because they "felt comfortable."She said, "This made me sure I achieved a good something."

Developing
writer's audience awareness.Compositionists have raised so many issues related to audience awareness, the kind of audience a writer may be thinking of while writing, and ways of helping studentwriters-as Willey (1990) suggests-"decenter", to move from the egocentric stage to actually presenting information for a reader with a purpose in mind.That is, students of writing need to become aware that they are writing to a reader and to decide what kind of relationship they want to have with this intended reader and how to create such a relation.Composition theorists referred to this kind of audience awareness as "social cognition".Curtis Bonk (1990) defines social cognition as "a person's inferences, beliefs, or conceptions about the inner psychological processes or attributes of other human beings " (1990, p. 137).In other words, a writer needs to make assumptions concerning the kind of mentality and psychology the addressed reader either has or will have while reading the text being composed.
The students in ENG206 mentioned clearly in their journal entry that they were thinking of the audience, their prospective reader and what purpose they wanted to impart to this audience.Many of them actually expressed strong audience awareness.Nahar worried a lot that her poor vocabulary might make her subject "not good, not interesting to reader."Kanary and Rasha shared a concern to make their readers "understand, feel … and think."Kanary said that it was a "big responsibility" while Rasha discovered how "a simple idea with hard work becomes effective" to readers.Iman was aware that the teacher was going to be the primary reader, and she was clearly writing to her.She said, "I tried to put all specific details in it to make her [teacher] understand everything without any questionable stopping….I became very careful … because I wanted it to be excellent work." Kawther explained in details how she worked for her reader."I tried to make things happen logically….When I finished I wrote it repeatedly to check the relatedness of the events… I added some tiny details … in order to make it more related and expressive….Also I changed some words and edited the lexical choices to make the book more effective for the reader."Alaa' discovered that she had to work on her grammar errors because they made reading not interesting.In the process she learned "how to convince other people and give [her] opinion polite."She said, "I learned in my personal book to write and describe everything … small and big [to make] the reader feel with me."Inas was very clear: "It was a fantastic feeling to write and to let the people feel with you and share [with] them your experience….I gave all the details in order to help readers understand and never make a gap."Nahar worried that language problems would make her "subject not good, not interesting to reader."DHuha felt it a problem if there is a possibility that her "writing maybe misunderstood" or if others cannot understand it as she wanted.She worked hard because she thought that the "reader must live with writer's feeling, thought, and events."For this end, she tried to make her "writing expressive to make reader live the story."

Ends: Have students become authors?
With the end of the experience of writing a long text on one topic and from their own repertoire without using or copying from other sources, it became legitimate to ask the question: Did students become authors?All students with no exception talked seriously about themselves while engaged in the writing process.Twenty one of the thirty students in the class said clearly in their journal that they came to understand how authors write and that they had experienced firsthand the kind of suffering authors go through to produce good texts.They now know what kind of work needed to accomplish a readable, effective text.Generally speaking, students divide into two main groups.The first group thought they were not authors but they knew how authors write.Students in the second group stated clearly that they felt like they have become authors.
The first group of students thought they still needed to go a long way before they could declare that they have become authors, but that they understand the requirements as they discovered how to make it happen if they were to decide to become authors.Yuosef found that he actually wrote though he could not write 10 lines in the past.He did not think he became an author, and he never had a dream to be one because he thought it impossible.But "now," he said, "yes I will make it true."Likewise, Rasha thought it difficult to say that she had become an author.She said, "If I am, everyone could be."But she discovered the secret: "To write, I need to work hard."Nahar,who like Yousef, never thought she would become an author on one day as she thought she was "unable to write a long book on one subject because [she] lacked experience in the language," tried though to make her writing better and was surprised she could write.She ended her journal saying that her experience was "difficult but interesting." On the other hand, some students felt happy for the result they achieved though they could not say that they became authors.DHuha, for example, was tired, but when finished, she felt comfortable and happy as she discovered for the first time in her life that she could write.Similarly, Sufyan explained how "writing [his] personal book … was a good idea."He continued, "The personal book gives [sic] me a chance to express what happened….Made me very nervous … but I felt very happy.I enjoyed in writing….It was [a] difficult experience that needed a lot of time….Despite all difficulties, I felt happy and I enjoyed in writing."In the same way, Fadwa explained how "writing … was difficult … especially to look after language and words.But it is finished then I discovered that it is easy to write when you want to write."For her, it was a matter of being committed.Su'aad complained that she "was forced to write," but while doing it she "felt some sense of authoring because [she] knew … which is important which is not."That feeling was "exciting and interesting" to her.
The second group consists of those students who found enough courage to announce it strong.Yes; they felt they became authors either because of their awareness of the process itself and its requirements or because of the results they achieved.Nasreen thought it was a good experience because she discovered that she could write and express her thoughts in a good way.Inas also thought it was "an interesting job but it needed a lot of time and hard work."She talked in details about how the experience affected her image of herself, and then said, "I could write….I became confident of my writing….I trust my writing and my abilities….It opened the door for me to be a decision maker….Nobody has authority over me.I am the author.I give myself this title….This is the first time I feel I am a productive person in my society that I can do something good and at the same time not easy….In the experience, I became … more logical in my writing….I became the writer and the reader….I gave all the details in order to [help readers] understand and never make a gap." Reem like Inas and like an author talked about herself while engaged in the process and making decisions."I decided to make my book as [a] short story….I suffered from many difficulties.But I worked hard to convey my messages….I started to collect my ideas in draft and related the events or actions with each other ….At the end, I found myself know the rules of writing and how I can write in English language by [sic] professional way or a good manner."Leena felt like an author because she practiced having "the ability to control."In the same way, Husam talked about the kind of control he developed as an author while doing the job.He wrote saying, "Tired….I spent a long time writing, revising….I am [an] author … [I] write ... change ideas ... to be done in a good way like the author….I found that the work of the author [is] very tiring … [but] it is interesting." Asia very simply stated how she learned that "to be an author isn't difficult."She continued describing how she "learned from this book to write."Then, she felt she "became an author."But Iman felt hilarious about having done the job.She started her journal declaring: "Iman becoming an author."She continued: "In the beginning I felt it may be difficult how I become an author….But inside me, really I felt very strong feeling I must do it in a perfect picture [sic]."She explained how the "work needed a lot of patience," but in the process " [i] Like Iman, both Kawther and Islam J. declared clearly they thought they became authors.Kawther established with confidence at the beginning of her journal saying: "I am becoming an author."She continued, "Although I used to write poetry and short stories and journals and reports, but this experience taught me many new and effective devices in writing….It supported my qualities in writing."Islam J. "felt comfortable" essentially because he "felt that [he] achieved something and not anything, but something different and new."He thought it was "a big work" like the texts produced by authors and respected by readers.
The answer to the question whether students have become authors is yes.Most students felt they became authors or at least they understood how authors work.They all talked of the processes they were engaged in while producing the text.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
In a 1991 College English article, Peter Elbow insists that the expressivist writing class is capable of teaching students all the norms of academic writing.He maintains that critical thinking, reasoning and giving evidence, inference, and even naked summaries can all be gained through expressive writing with the least interference by the teacher.Elbow emphasizes that the "best test of a writing course is whether it makes students more likely to use writing in their lives" because "life is long and college is short" (p.145).He further asserts that non-academic discourse will help students produce good academic discourse by helping them establish "a personal connection" with the subject matter they tackle (p.148).And this is the core of the expressivist notion in the teaching of writing: creating this personal connection between the writer and the topic.The writer must feel that all ideas presented, in whatever style, are her/his own regardless of which topic she/he is writing about.
The work students did in that ENG206: writing II class to produce the first assignment has been a strong argument supporting the benefits of using expressivist pedagogy in teaching writing to students who are not native speakers.The results were strikingly encouraging to their aspiring teacher of writing.Having students write from their own personal experience helped achieve several goals.First, students became comfortable with the idea of writing in English to express themselves and their own thoughts and ideas.
Second, their heightened concentration on developing ideas and presenting them in clear language enhanced their language abilities and helped them to feel comfortable with the language itself as a means of communication-not as a school subject, which they study to pass exams.Their intense involvement in revising sharpened their sense of language mistakes.Hence, writing from personal experience can be a strong aid to personalize students' own language learning, which is always recommended.That is, if we want our students to be good in English and to use it for communication exactly as they use Arabic, they need to feel that the language is their own, that it conveys their own messages and that it helps them to achieve their own purposes.
Third, students learned how to write placing themselves in the appropriate rhetorical situation.Contrary to the students of Sally Chandler who resisted "engaging in rhetorical analysis of purpose, audience, and form," (2007, p. 59) Students of ENG206: Writing II, the class described here, could not elude this kind of engagement because the topics were their own and from their own lives.They wrote to communicate a message and to create an effect-not just to fulfill a class assignment.
Fourth, like the students of Amy Goodburn and Heather Camp, these students' work on the personal book "offered a space to explore central issues in their lives from different perspectives " (2004, p. 95).Some expressed a growth in personality, a change in the way they understand the world and other people.For this reason, they were involved in both working on grammar and language and at the same time on ideas to create the intended effect.
Fifth, it was clear that writing the personal book boosted students' self-confidence and heightened their self-respect as it made possible a better understanding of their situation at the intersection of two widely different languages.
Teachers of ESL/EFL writing at the college level are encouraged to follow the expressivist approach in their classes.But they have to ensure three conditions.First, teachers must be willing to show high level of engagement in students' writing processes.Second, individual writing conferences are vital for the success of this approach as students will need to talk to the teacher on a one-to-one basis about their topics and writing processes.In such conferences students will have the chance to feel the legitimacy of their stories and life experiences as topics for their own writing.Third, students will need to feel the teacher's personal respect and acceptance of what they feel to be important to them.Once they are assured that their ideas are important, they will be able to write comfortably and they will pay attention to and worry about the effectiveness of their expression and accuracy of their language-our ultimate goals as teachers of ESL/EFL writing classes.Finally, it is worth affirming that the principal key to the success of this class was a positive attitude toward students' abilities and writing.