The teaching of writing proposed by the French school system has notably evolved since the middle of the 19th century. This article analyses how different levels in a written production (pragmatic, textual, syntactical, lexical, morphological, orthographical) are taken into account and worked at with the students. For each period, we will try to explain which linguistic operations connected to the “text process” are mainly taught, how this teaching is carried out, upon which level is focused the training suggested in the teacher’s syllabus, which activities are suggested for the students and practiced in the classrooms and which ones are left aside, which status is assigned to the drafts, which standard of the good text do these syllabus and exercises diffuse.