Probably not on subject, but . . . .
I agree with Elena in one sense. The best thing we can do as teachers is to basically get out of the way.
Until the student “owns" her work (she can touch it), nothing is going to happen.
But if we start grading creative work (and I believe all writing is creative writing) based on the things she set forth, we run the risk of being counterproductive, too. Even when we say “we're marking for improvement," it sounds false because what we seem to mean is a paper with no errors. I don't know how many have seen Lincoln's Gettysburg Address marked up by an English teacher, but you can't see the words for the red ink.
It's a dilemma, but some things sound true. Writing is not a group paced activity (Editing may be.) You get better at writing by writing, not by studying or thinking about writing. Readers are writers. There is no such thing as writing, only rewriting. Writing is closer to music and painting than logic (If you want to hear a five paragraph essay in music listen to Michael Bolton's The Finer Things.) And the reason for writing remains the same: I only know all that I know when I can put it in writing.
I suppose this is high-end stuff, but kids in the lower grades are wonderfully open to poetry. By the time they reach high school, we've beaten that out of them. Everything must be measured, everything must be scientific. We say we are preparing kids for college or for the world of business . . . but life? All thinking may be meatphorical thinking (Frost) but not in this school, pal.
I guess what I am suggesting is that if you take a long enough view, the problem with students learning to write is probably the teacher. I know in the long view we're all dead.
It's a dilemma.
“If you can read this (don't thank a teacher) thank a writer."