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I think that the best for the studentsl is to combine both approaches, suggesting a model for their product can help my students to make their work faster and at the end they can share it with their partners and in this stage they can learn a lot knowing and comparing other works.
Some other writing activities that I do in my classes are writing texts about cultural aspects, personal experiences, instructions, design a catalogue, some tasks follow a pre-established model like the instructions and catalogues and in other cases the student uses his own ideas and gives them the format he wants to his text like in essays and personal experiences.