Writing Didactics – From Product to Process to Text Competence

Abstract

How did the discussion about the teaching and learning of writing evolve in the German speaking area during the last decades? This paper reconstructs important lines of development, paying special attention to discussions and contributions from German-speaking Switzerland. An empirical foundation for teaching and learning of writing has been built up through a productive cooperation between research on writing, and writing didactics. Within this cooperation, the view on the process of writing has become a central issue. Based on this foundation, process-oriented writing didactics have brought forth a number of suggestions for successful writing didactics. Recently – in part due to a higher public interest in school achievement -, more attention has been paid to the effects of this teaching, leading to more frequent discussions. As the promotion of literacy has become a societal necessity, the issue of text competence is an increasingly important topic of research.