AUSSIE

Blog entry posted June 7th, 2010 by Dale Worsley

Pardon me while I pause to praise freewriting.

The topic has come up several times in past posts: as a way to respond to essential questions, as a phenomenon that liberated a middle schooler named José when he wrote, “Seeing is not believing,” as a vehicle for the unique poetry of her ninth grade mind when Jasmine wrote, “…a quiet, spacious room, reaching and stretching and acting….” It was Jasmine who went on to reflect about freewriting itself, “I felt understood and related.”

What is freewriting, anyway?

In concrete terms, it is a timed writing exercise, during which a person writes whatever comes to mind, without stopping to judge the value of the work or to worry about conventions. It must be evaluated on effort, not on content. It is useful to get ideas flowing, to assess the acquisition of writing and thinking skills, to see what’s on students’ minds the better to prepare them for learning, to make connections and build communities of learners, to “access prior knowledge” of content…. The list could go on (and will).

I think of freewriting as a kind of highly personalized form of data collection. To sample the contents of a river, you dip a bucket in at intervals to catch what’s flowing by. To sample the contents of a student’s mind, you use a freewriting as your bucket. (When I worked as a hospital aide in times past, we conducted the infamous “midstream catch.” I’ll tell you what that is later over a beer.)

There are basically two types of freewrite: open and directed. In an open freewrite, you write whatever comes to mind (the blackbird you saw that morning, the reaching and stretching and acting of the room, etc.) In a directed freewrite, you write whatever comes to mind about a particular topic: quadratic equations, justice, chemical bonding, you name it.

A freewrite can be profitably conducted before, during, or after a learning experience. Sometimes the same prompt before and after tells what students actually knew before the lesson and picked up during it. Freewrites usually thrive best when shared in a trusting environment, where risks are rewarded. The whole point of the exercise is to take the pressure off the assessment process. Where tests create anxiety, freewrites can be a relief.

Freewrites work best when shared, as a general rule. I open almost every workshop I conduct with a freewrite. Usually I model it first, then give the participants a choice to do an open freewrite, respond to an inspiring quote, or sketch something – for two minutes with adults, longer with school kids. I then pair participants up to select a word, phrase, sentence or image and write back to the partner why they selected it. (Remember Jasmine writing back to me, “Out of a phrase, a trail of thoughts flow.”) Then, for the whole group, participants summarize their partner’s freewrite, read the selected language (remember the “golden thread” of past posts?), and read verbatim their response. This is a quick way to (a) develop basic comprehension skills; (b) publish people’s writing; (c) have it reviewed, so to speak; and (c) subversively overcome anxiety about sharing your own writing. All within a very few minutes. Why will people gladly read their writing when it’s about someone else’s writing? I don’t know, but it gets everybody into the game – without the usual heebie jeebies about presenting your own work.

Freewrites are useful across the curriculum. Think about it. You teach to get something into the students’ consciousness. Now you’re checking the stream of their consciousness to see if it actually got in. Are their minds going with the flow you want them to go with, or some other flow – thoughts about that worthless boyfriend hanging out with their best friend, for instance, or maybe the spin move they plan to make in this afternoon’s basketball game? Freewriting’s a great way to tell, in a natural way.

Going with the flow? The natural way? I can see the content-burdened math, science and social studies teachers edging toward the door, so let me say right now that, perhaps counter-intuitively, freewriting actually helps students to acquire and retain facts and concepts. It doesn’t slow down the coverage. On the contrary, it speeds up the “uncoverage.” I’m not making this up. I present the following evidence…

First the hard research, to keep the skeptics in the room a few more precious seconds:

In their article “The Effects of School-based Writing-to-Learn Interventions on Academic Achievement: A Meta-Analysis,” published in Vol. 74, No. 1. of the Review of Educational Research, R. Bangert-Drowns, et. al. said, and  I quote, “Writing to learn has been demonstrated to produce positive effects on school achievement.” They cautioned that, “Consistency of practice over time produces better effects when using writing-to-learn activities.” And they advised that, “Shorter writing-to-learn activities are often more productive than longer ones.”

Okay, I’ve stopped my skeptics’ advance toward the exits. Let’s see if I can get them all the way back in their seats…
In “Writing, Mathematics, and Metacognition: Looking for Connections Through Students’ Work in Mathematical Problem Solving,” published in Vol. 101, No. 5 of School Science and Mathematics, (2001), D. K. Pagalee wrote, “Writing has the potential to provide the process for attaining essential skills in mathematics and other content areas.” Pagalee endorsed freewriting further by saying, “Writing can provide a valuable source of information for teachers to assess how their students learn and think about mathematics and other content areas.”

Whew! That was exhausting! But now that I’ve coaxed the doubters back to the table I can move on to the anecdotal evidence, the voices of the students and teachers. Don’t worry, Gina. It’s coming next post. And…it will be an enjoyable read. I promise.