Friday, October 22, 2010
Free Writing = Free Junk??
I have a love-hate relationship with free-writing. I love when I get to express my thoughts without fear of interruption, judgmental opinion or grammatical errors. The problem is, sometimes this free writing can turn into a complete piece of garbage. Peter Elbow says that's okay, as long as your been exercising your handwriting. But I don't know.... as a teacher, I would say I worry when students take a prompt and run with it so far as to end with writing their super market shopping list. I would know, I've done it plenty of times.
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Hi Mighty,
ReplyDeleteA few weeks ago, Charlene and I went to a lecture where the professor would assign 8 pages of freewriting for a grade. As long as they did 8 pages, they would get an A. Anything less would get a lower grade. The purpose of his assignment was that within those 8 pages, he's always able to find "golden nuggets" which he highlights and gives back to the student. I'm sure that when you look back on your freewriting, you've been able to find at least a line or two that you absolutely love. With students, I think this would be a great assignment to do before assigning a major paper. They might be able to find a thesis for their paper among the junk.
I agree with Nancy's comment--there's always going to be some jewel buried in the junk, and a careful reader can find it. But even if there isn't, at least the junk is out of your system, and you can move on to create jewels in other writing!
ReplyDeleteMighty, I am a believer! Peter Elbow helped me to get through my midterm paper with 50% less angst. Nancy said that I needed a few more edits,but the nuggets were there. I have terrible writer's anxiety and it makes me procrastinate. This time I just started writing. I don't know if I wrote a better paper but I was able to write. And I will do it again, because for someone like me getting past the fear and getting something down on paper is the most important thing.
ReplyDeleteHey Mighty, I think Charlene and Professor Rorschach are right on. How much time do you give your students to free write? Also, I read one of the comments posted about a teacher giving her students a grade of A for handing in 8 pages of free writing. That's great but is this an in class free writing exercise? I believe Elbow's free writing works if you're given or you give yourself enough time to dig deep through your writing. I don't think 15 minutes of writing is going to prove that productive but the practice might be good anyway. Personally, I need time, preferably at home time, to gain from free writing. My process is slow, which has nothing to do with age--it's always been the case. Nonetheless, I agree with Charlene and Betty--ELbow's free writing is a means to get to the worthy stuff.
ReplyDeleteI dont know guys... I was pretty skeptical at first. But I really like the idea about keeping a free writing diary. I'm def. gonna try it. Charlene, it seems like it really worked out for you. When I write a paper, I want every sentence to be written grammatically correct and sound cohesive. Which is why I spend every minute of analyzing and perfecting it. I guess it's just that I have been taught that whatever is written down on paper should be written in proper English. So it's hard to move away from that. But I will try it next time I have a paper!
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