Twenty-five Years of Writing Didactics. Outcomes and Outlook

Abstract

This paper displays the stages of the development of mothertongue didactics, recalling the societal requirements and displaying a unifying view as well as different approaches and branch-specific research methods. An analysis of the scientific work produced during the last twenty-five years in the field of written expression follows. On the one hand, there is research for writing didactics was undertaken in view of status and representation of this activity, of classification and models of text types and of the respective learning processes; on the other hand, research had been done in writing didactics, leading either to didactics of text types or to writing didactics. Further studies focus on analyzing research on learning and teaching put into practice at school. Eventually, this contribution imposes three requirements for the future, first, to foster further integration of the different trends in a discipline, second, to redefine and reorganize pupils’ learning aims, and third, to reform teacher training with regards to the didactics of writing.