Freewriting for fluency and flow in eighth and ninth grade reading classes

Abstract

This study examined the experiences of students in regular freewriting sessions. Freewriting is defined as nonstop writing during which the writer may freely move through topics but may not stop writing. In a packed school curriculum, why would teachers use freewriting? What advantages and disadvantages would they encounter? This study sought to explore students’ experiences with and attitudes towards freewriting. Other studies have been conducted on the results of freewriting on writing performance, but fewer studies, especially at the middle-sceondary level, have explored the experiences students have in freewriting. Freewriting has been pushed aside in the focus on test-preparations, quite often. However, freewriting gets to the key factor in success with writing: developing fluency. Fluent writers can think more clearly on paper and can use writing to learn in content areas. In addition, writing can provide benefits beyond the learning experiences, such as writing that is healing and the experience of flow that can result in focused writing. Such sustained experiences with writing, as this study explored, build fluency in student writing, generate motivation to write, and promote flow experiences for student writers. This qualitative case study included some quantitative data as well, thus a form of mixed method research was conducted, including interviews, student writing, observations, surveys, fluency measures, and writing apprehension scales. Data was collected over 18 weeks involving 17 eighth and ninth graders in two reading classrooms and their teacher. Students completed five-minute freewrites most every day for 18 weeks as part of their classroom warm-up.

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“…By engaging in a regular freewriting exercise, lowlevel Korean EFL learners achieved a significant improvement in their English proficiency. Furthermore, the results of the study add to the existing L2 freewriting literature by expanding the value and importance of freewriting beyond a writing aid (Hwang, 2010;Lannin, 2007) which facilitates L2 development. Given these results, it appears reasonably safe to say that freewriting exercises confer advantages for EFL learners from East Asian countries in particular, in which saving face is an important cultural concept (DeCapua & Wintergerst, 2004) and English is regarded as a difficult school subject (Sawir, 2005).…”

“…The fact that 13 out of 51 students (25.49%) in the comparison group avoided speaking in English at all could suggest low-level Korean EFL learners' heightened fear and resistance. On the other hand, only one student in the treatment group relied on Korean on the post-test, suggesting that the treatment group students' significant engagement in autobiographical writing in the form of freewriting gave them courage and confidence (Lannin, 2007).…”

The class blog : Chinese EFL non-English major college students' online writing experiences

“…Writing apprehension: It refers to the fears and anxiety that writers encounter when confronted with a writing task, especially a fear of how their writing will be evaluated by teachers and others. People need to look "beyond the abilities of writers and contexts of the situation to include the attitude that writers bring to the experience" (Lannin, 2007).…”

“…Many educators have explored the effect of freewriting on the fluency and flow in students' writing. In her unpublished doctoral dissertation, Dr. Amy Lannin (2007) examines the experiences of the 8 th and 9 th graders during regular freewriting sessions and finds that freewriting builds fluency in student writing, generates motivation to write, and promotes flow experiences for student writers, during which the students lose track of time, find satisfaction in what they are doing, are in control of the situation and experience a loss of self-awareness, yet sustain a focus while writing (p.175). Besides the above five dimensions of the flow experience, Csikszentmihalyi (1990) also stresses that an equilibrium between the level of challenge and personal skill should be establishedstudents have to be sufficiently challenged, and confront tasks which are neither too hard nor too easy so that they "have a chance of completing" (p.49).…”

2006-2019 Yılları Arasında Kullanılan Türkçe Öğretim Programlarının Akıcı Yazma Becerisi Açısından Karşılaştırılması

“…Akıcı yazmanın tanımlarında hız, doğruluk, zorlanmadan yazma, fikirler arasında tutarlılık gibi farklı unsurlar olsa da (Hudson, 2002;Lannin, 2007;Wolfe-Quintero, İnagaki ve Kim, 1998) akıcı yazmada genelde hız ve zaman bakımından ölçümlerin yapıldığı görülmektedir. Wolfe-Quintero ve diğerleri (1998, s.14) "Akıcılık kelimelerin veya yapıların ne kadar üst seviye veya doğru olduğunun ölçümü değildir bunun yerine yazarların belli bir zaman dönemi içinde yazılarına katabildikleri kelime veya yapı birimlerinin katıksız sayısıdır."…”