The Apprenticeship Approach to Writing Instruction

Abstract

This essay begins by reviewing the nature of apprenticeship in non-writing contexts. It then describes, distinguishes and illustrates the apprenticeship, traditional and process approaches to writing instruction. After surveying evidence that apprenticeship provides a more promising model of writing instruction than any other contemporary approach, this essay highlights a few practical applications of this model to writing instruction. This essay concludes that apprenticeship comes closer than other contemporary models to providing an over-arching paradigm of writing instruction. The apprenticeship model is consistent with much of what we know about both language and learning; it promises to make writing instruction more enjoyable and fruitful to both learners and teachers; it resolves such perennial controversies as the place of literature, explicit teaching, grammar and self-awareness in the composition classroom; and it assimilates the best features of traditional and process instruction while avoiding most of their pitfalls.