>>Find an approach to learning to write that you have encountered, used, or would like to know more about. Describe and analyze the approach using the concepts introduced in this section.

In my experience as a tutor, I have found qualitative content analysis to be useful method for helping students understand texts. To gain a more qualitative understanding of a text, students are first asked to locate groups of semantically similar words (semantic fields) that can be grouped under a single or multiple key themes or ideas. This allows a generalised theoretical reflection, which also includes metacognition: students proceed to analyze the meanings of these relationships between the words within a semantic field, but also the relationships between these fields, to better understand the intentions and targets of different texts.

For instance, to gain a more qualitative understanding of employment issues in political campaigns, a learner can start by locating the word in speeches,check if there are any other words related to 'employment' which explore a different aspect of employment (such as 'salary', 'revenue', which could be grouped under the umbrella term of the 'financial' aspect of employment). The learner could then proceed to analyze the meanings of these relationships between the words in each group, but also the relationships between the different semantic fields, to better understand the intentions and targets of different campaigns.

Students can then use this approach to decoding a text as a model for learning to write. That is, being aware of using different semantic fields in their own writing, becoming aware of the connections between different such fields, as well as the connections between the words within each field, as well as organising their paragraphs in a way that accomodates an interesting combination of such semantic fields, in a way that serves the purpose of their writing. This can all be easily organised in the planning and the drafting process, where the student can brainstorm ideas about the different semantic fields they would like to use in their writing.