Part B:

Compare and Contrast any TWO Writing Strategies and Implications for the
Classroom
Among the four language skills to be taught in the ESL primary classrooms,
writing skill is considered as quite the difficult skill to master as in the way of teaching and
the acceptance in learning. This is probably because the pupils need to have the basic
language; vocabulary of that particular topic taught in a lesson, grammar in terms of sentence
patterns, verbs as well as the punctuations that are equally important to begin and end the
sentences. Apart from that, thinking skills are to be taken into account as the way the pupils
organise the ideas before writing is important to ensure that the flow of writing is coherent
and logical.
In teaching writing to the primary school pupils, there are various writing
strategies proposed by the experts depending on the pupils needs, preferences, language
abilities and personalities. Congjun Mu in his article A Taxonomy of ESL Writing
Strategies compiled a few writing strategies that are suitable for teaching pupils as well as
the impacts of each of them towards the teaching and learning in the classroom. Among the
writing strategies proposed in the article are Arndts Categories of Writing Strategies (1987),
Wendens meta-cognitive and cognitive strategies (1991), Victoris strategies (1995), Riazis
composing strategies (1997) and Sasakis Japanese ESL students writing strategies (2000).
The writer then has synthesised and combined all the strategies into taxonomy of ESL writing
strategies. In the taxonomy, the strategies are divided into five which are rhetorical strategies,
meta-cognitive strategies, cognitive strategies, communicative strategies and social or
affective strategies.
I believe that there are two suitable writing strategies that can be implemented
in the classroom, hence the compare and contrast elements are to be elaborated in the next
part of this writing. The two writing strategies are rhetorical strategies and cognitive
strategies. Both writing strategies are digressed into a few sub-strategies. For rhetorical
strategies, the sub-strategies are organisation, use of L1, formatting or modelling and
comparing. On the other hand, the cognitive strategies, the sub-strategies are generating
ideas, revising, elaborating, clarification, retrieval, rehearsing and summarising.

The comparison shall be started with the definition of the two strategies.
Rhetorical strategies are the strategies by which you will present the ideas and evidence to the
readers who read your writing. These strategies which sometimes are called rhetorical modes
or techniques, help a writer organize evidence, connect facts into a sequence, and provide
clusters of information necessary for conveying a purpose or an argument. The writer might
choose to analyse the cause of an outcome, compare one thing to another, classify your facts
into categories, define a key term, describe a person, place or phenomenon, explain how a
process works or narrate a pertinent event or experience.
On the other hand, Chinn and Chinn (2009) define the cognitive strategies as
mental processes or procedures for accomplishing a particular cognitive goal. For example, if
students goals are to write good essays, their cognitive strategies might include
brainstorming and completing an outline. The cognitive strategies that students use influence
how they will perform in school, as well as what they will accomplish outside of school.
Researchers have found that effective learners and thinkers use more effective strategies for
reading, writing, problem solving and reasoning than ineffective learners and thinkers.
Thus, it can be concluded that rhetorical and cognitive strategies serve
different purpose of writing for different writers. However, both strategies aim to give
influence to the readers through the way they write. Rhetorical strategies focus on how the
writers should persuade the readers with their beautiful language, facts and evidence of that
particular topic that they will write. Cognitive strategies on the other hand focus on how they
influence the readers through their firmness of writing styles and brainstorming of ideas to
give impact to the readers. Besides, both writing strategies are often used by students who
know the effectiveness and impact that they should give the readers, hence both strategies are
used by the effective thinkers and writers who want to give strong and clean outcome to their
readers from the writing.
Mu adds more in his article that the rhetorical strategies are ones that writers
use to organise and to present their ideas in writing conventions that are acceptable to native
speakers of English, thus classify organising, use of L1, rationalising format, modelling and
comparing fall into the category of rhetorical strategies. Organising strategies involves the
organisation of the beginning, development and conclusion of an essay. The flow of the essay
is arranged in order that the readers are able to see the stages in the writing of that particular

topic. For instance, Chinese students use the strategy of opening the door and seeing the
mountain (kai men jian shan) to start a passage which is equal to the strategy of coming to the
topic directly in English writing. Both of them are strategies for rhetorical organisation.
In writing that applies rhetorical strategies, ESL writers may use L1 or L1
knowledge to plan the paragraph and sentences. It is natural for them to bring L1 writing
conventions into ESL writing (Scollon, 1991). That way, the writers will be able to widen the
scope of their thinking to provide more concrete and logical evidence and fact for the topic of
their writing. Both rationalising format and modelling are strategies that ESL writers use to
look for appropriate genre for writing. Comparing strategy is regarded as one of the rhetorical
strategies because ESL writers use it to compare L1 writing conventions with ESL
conventions so as to adapt to the target discourse community.
The cognitive strategies according to Wenden (1991) and Riazi (1997) have
some strategies among them that are quite similar and can be represented by one of them. For
instance, repeating is the strategy writers use to provide an impetus to continue composing
(Arndt, 1987). Hypothesising, summarising, defining terms, lead-in and note-taking are all
used to generate new ideas. So these strategies can be represented by the strategy of
generating ideas. Students may use these strategies to develop facts and early ideas to for the
topic that they want to write. In addition, questioning and clarification are similar strategies
according to Wenden (1991). Therefore, the strategies under cognitive strategies can be
condensed into seven strategies including generating ideas, revising, elaborating,
clarification, retrieval, rehearsing, and summarising.
Rhetorical strategies started with the organisation of ideas whereas cognitive
strategies started with generation of ideas. The rhetorical strategies are more organised in a
way that they are straight to the arrangement of ideas and what they want to write as they
serve for the purpose to persuade the readers. On the other hand, cognitive strategies started
with something lighter and simpler as students usually start with something that they know,
something on the surface regarding the topic that they want to write. Students often start the
writing process by brainstorming the key ideas of the topic before elaborating and supporting
with facts and evidence of their writing. Rhetorical strategies widen their scope straight to
beginning, development and ending of their writing whereas cognitive strategies start with
the key ideas or the contents that they want to write in the development of their writing.

Besides, both strategies are compared and contrasted with the development of
their sub-strategies. Rhetorical strategies allow the use of writers first language (L1) to
translate the generated ideas into ESL. This is because some students or writers have the
language or evidence and facts in their mother tongue but it is difficult for them to think and
portray the ideas directly in the English language. Thus, to maintain the quality of the writing,
it is permissible for the writers using the rhetorical strategies to use their L1 to organise ideas
and key contents of their writing before translating them into ESL. As for cognitive strategies,
it is believed that all process or sub-strategies are conducted in English to ensure that they
master the language completely and that there are no direct translating from the mother
tongue.
For rhetorical strategies, there are formatting or modelling and comparing
which are for genre consideration and different rhetorical conventions. On the other hand,
cognitive strategies include revising, elaborating, clarification, retrieval, rehearsing and
summarising. Writers are allowed to make changes in plan or written text before elaborating
on the contents of writing. Clarification is the disposing of confusions and retrieval is the
process of getting information from the memory. There are two other sub-strategies of the
cognitive strategies which are the rehearsing and summarising sub-categories. Rehearsing is
the process where writers try out ideas or language and summarising is synthesising what has
been read. Rhetorical strategies are simpler in process whereas cognitive strategies are more
complex and detailed. The cognitive strategies serve more steps for the writers to develop
their ideas in writing whereas rhetorical strategies serve a much quicker process to write the
ideas and develop the contents.
Both writing strategies actually have implications in the classroom as both
serve different purposes and processes in writing. For rhetorical strategies in writing, it serves
for writing styles that are more creative and interesting to attract the readers. The rhetorical
strategies may be suitable if the students want to write about the topic that should be
engaging to the readers such as the extended essays about stories, narrations, histories, or
argumentative essays which need students to convince the readers that their choice of the two
elements in the topic is truly believable and that there are various statements, facts or
opinions that strongly support the points of the writers. This type of strategies is suitable for
pupils who have the language background regarding the facts that they will use to support the
ideas that they have chosen. For instance, the students are assigned a task on argumentative

essay regarding learning at home or learning with friends (group study). Through rhetorical
strategies, students will be able to organise their ideas more clearly and cleanly as the ideas
that they are providing start with their first language, where they will find it easier to search
for the correct facts and ideas to convince the readers.
Cognitive strategies on the other hand serve a more detailed and step-by-step
procedures of writing. This is suitable for students who have the difficulty to organise ideas to
start their writing. Cognitive strategies give mental thinking or processes regarding the
writing that students need to accomplish, hence the strategies are suitable for students who
need extra guidance in developing their writing ideas. Usually, cognitive strategies are used
for writing tasks that require the clear flow of ideas or steps and procedures that need to be
fully and clearly explained in the writing. Factual essays and essays regarding process and
procedures usually are suitable for the students to use these types of strategies. For example,
teachers assign the students to complete a topic on steps to make a fruit salad as in the topic
Fresh Fruits in the Year Three textbook. The students will have to organise their ideas, revise
what they think they need to adjust especially in terms of the content of the essay.
Conclusively, the cognitive strategies promote students to think in detail of what they should
write.
In conclusion, based on CongJun Mus article on A Taxonomy of ESL Writing
Strategies, there are various teaching strategies that can be applied by teachers in the
teaching and learning session in the classroom. Surely, the strategies have their own
specifications and uniqueness. In order to choose the best writing strategies to teach the
students, teachers should be aware of and familiar with the students language proficiency,
social background, personalities, writing styles and the writing topic that teachers want the
students to accomplish.

References
Arndt, V. (1987). Six writers in search of texts: A protocol-based study of L1 and L2 writing.
ELT Journal, 41, 257-267.
Chinn, C. & Chinn, L. (2009). Cognitive Strategies. Cited on 14 th July 2015 from
http://www.education.com/reference/article/cognitive-strategies/.
Riazi, A. (1997). Acquiring disciplinary literacy: A social-cognitive analysis of text
production and learning among Iranian graduate students of education. Journal of
Second Language Writing, 6(2), 105-137.
Sasaki, M. (2000). Toward an empirical model of EFL writing processes: An exploratory
study. Journal of Second Language Writing, 9(3), 259-291.
Scollon, R. (1991). Eight legs and one elbow: Stance and structure in Chinese English
compositions. Paper presented at the International Reading Association, Second North
American Conference on Adult and Adolescent Literacy, Banff.
Victori, M. (1995). EFL writing knowledge and strategies: An interactive study. Unpublished
PhD dissertation, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (Spain), Barcelona.
Wenden, A. L. (1991). Metacognitive strategies in L2 Writing: A case for task knowledge. In
J. E. Alatis (Ed.), Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics
1991 (pp. 302-322). Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.