There are a number of theoretical principles and class room practices that are central to a writing pedagogy. It is necessary to take into account the academic literature on the topic and apply to real-life situations. The theoretical principles and classroom practices that this essay will be looking at are: socio-cultural nature of language, functional grammar, spelling and scaffolding. .
Writing and language more generally, is influenced by culture and society. Language is reflective of the society in which it was produced; this is believed by Kress (1998). Therefore language learning and writing in the classroom should allow students to practice both jointly and independently the values of community, negotiation, discussion, reflection, critical review, persuasion and argument. Reflecting on these values emphasises the importance of socially valued attributes and skills. Writing is a Sociocultural Phenomenon as social values from the very constitution of the texts we read, interpret, understand and value. Campbell and Green (2000, p. 74) state that in order to empower out students, we as teachers must use "relevant words and structures to meet the purposes of their communication in practical and purposeful manner." The classroom applications of this are hat we must use explicit language in out discussions and lessons with students, and introduce them to the ways that writing is constructed by different people for different purposes, with different backgrounds. .
Kress (1993, p. 30) builds on this idea arguing that in a society that has "regularly recurring situations" where the citizens are required to carry out certain tasks and interact with other people, students need to understand that texts are produced to do "some specific social and cultural things." Therefore, teachers need and should make clear that writing is guided by conventions specific to the text types and that although these conventions are never completely fixed, they do provide "certain dimensions of restraint".
