In today's society student writers are constantly focused on the mistakes that they make. While this may be useful in some situations, it does not help in the writing environment. When students constantly edit themselves as they write, they are hindering their thoughts and ideas. In doing this, they will eventually lose their voice. In his essay "Freewriting," Peter Elbow (1998) discusses the process of freewriting and how it allows the reader to freely express their thoughts without the need to edit as they go.
Elbow begins his essay by explaining how freewriting is the most effective way to improve your writing and how to go about it. He continues to say that the only requirement in freewriting is that you never stop writing (89). Elbow
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The sun was hiding behind a sea of grey ominous clouds and it felt like everyone was in a haze. As I walked up to the large white building I began twisting the buttons on my cardigan. “I really need to stop doing this.” I thought, “I’m going to end up pulling them all off.” “Are you ready for this?” The question hit me out of nowhere. I had almost forgotten that my mom and brother were walking right behind me. As I walked through the glass doors I turned to my mother and said, “I certainly hope so!” I’m sure that gave her a real boost of confidence. Once I was inside, I had no idea where to go. I walked up to the welcome center’s desk, but I must say the ladies sitting behind the desk didn’t look very welcoming, and I froze as soon as one of them turned to me and said, “Can I help you?” As crazy as it sounds, I wasn’t prepared for that. “I’m looking for the testing center.” I said in a barely audible tone. “Do you have a pass?” she inquired. “A pass? I didn’t know I needed one.” fear quickly washed over me. “Well, you’ll need to fill out these forms before you can go in.” She reached into one of the drawers and pulled out 2 sheets of paper. Once I was done with my paperwork I began ascending the staircase. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect once I got to the top, but I definitely wasn’t expecting to see so many people. The waiting area wasn’t secluded, but out in the open. The walls were lined with benches, but there weren’t enough for everyone to have a seat. A very pensive woman stood at a podium in front of 2 large wooden doors. Assuming that was where I needed to check in, I walked up to her, hoping she would know why I was there. She held out her hand, and in a very short tone asked me for my pass. (I guess I did need one after all.) After I handed it to her she looked it over, made a note on her clipboard and told me to have a seat. I glanced around behind me. Obviously she wasn’t aware of the scarce seating
Macrorie has hope that with the steps he provided college students will be more inclined to try and improve their writing. The steps go from “ Writing Freely without a focus” to “ Writing Freely with a focus”. These steps give the audience some assurance that it’s not too difficult to change their writing skills. Writing freely without a focus is the first step, it calls the audience to take sometime out of their busy college lives and free write of ten minutes nonstop. This will help provide voice, by forcing yourself to write nonstop you give yourself no time for Engfish and lies. Macrories reviews a student who attempted ten minutes of free writing this is an excerpt from her writing , “Just one impression was the result, no heat or light or sound- all of them rolled into one impact when the torch set off the fumes.”(Macrorie302). The student accomplished everything Macrorie wanted to, the writer perfectly communicated the effect of an explosion in a short space and it made complete
Writing requires a delicate balance between pleasing an audience, yet finding and sticking true to personal perspectives. More often than not, people find themselves ignoring their own thoughts and desires and just following along with the crowd, not standing up and arguing for anything, leaving behind a wishy-washy essay because they are too scared to stray from the obligations to others before the obligation to themselves. Anne Lamott’s “The Crummy First Draft” and Koji Frahm’s “How To Write an A Paper” both evaluate and stress the importance to find your own voice in writing and to be more critical towards readers. The reader’s perspective needs to play a role in writing, but it should not overrule the writer themselves. Writing needs to
In an excerpt from “The Process of Writing: Cooking” (Writing without Teachers, 1976), Peter Elbow shares his two-step freewriting method he learned to help him move past the fog of doubt caused by writer’s block. He sympathized with the reader and offered the advice to write indiscriminately, recognize the symptoms of encroaching panic, and redirect when necessary. Lastly, he explained how he could then assemble a mess of words into one idea while avoiding unnecessary frustrations. Then, typically, he would have reserved enough strength to edit constructively.
I am more knowledgeable about invention, arrangement, style, and delivery, all in which create a masterful piece of text. A few examples, I have learned to organize and construct my thoughts and ideas clearer. I have been taught to use stronger transitions and focus more on the delivery and content of the body element of essays. Further, the instructions and advice I have received throughout this term have influenced my understanding of the purpose of writing. My outlook on writing has been modified by shifting my perception of writing from, writing to prove I am a good writer by perceiving it as using “fluffy” or BIG words to impress my audience. I grew to understanding that good writing’s purpose is to engage the writer by mind-striking ideas and arguments, which therefore will prove and title me as a “good writer”.
“Although both articles are exploring writing and the change that needs to or that does happen, Peter Elbow’s idea of growth in writing is a more naïve and simplistic approach to writing, where as Somers and Saltz’s article, while still very general, takes a more realistic point of view at the writing experience for students and new writers”.
In this day and age, writing is being portrayed through various mediums, such as film and television. Some of those portrayals depict writing as both good and bad depending on the situation that is present. Authors such as, by E. Shelley Reid, Kevin Roozen, and Anne Lamott all write about important writing concepts that are being depicted in films, like Freedom Writers. The film Freedom Writers shows a positive and accurate portrayal of writing in the sense that the writers should have a connection to what they are writing about, writing is a form of communication, and that writing does not have to be perfect the first time.
Several people have trouble writing college level essays and believe that they are unable to improve their writing skills. In “the Inspired Writer vs. The Real Writer,” Sarah Allen argues how no one is born naturally good at writing. Sarah Allen also states how even professional writers have trouble with the task of writing. Others, such as Lennie Irvin, agree. In Irvin’s article “What is ‘Academic’ Writing?” states how there are misconceptions about writing. Furthermore, Mike Bunn’s article “How to Read Like a Writer” shows ways on how one can improve their writing skills. Allen, Bunn, and Irvin are correct to say how no one is born naturally good writers. Now that we know this, we should find ways to help improve our writing skills, and
Thinking about a topic to write about is not always easy, and sometimes the process of writing can end up being difficult. Jennifer Jacobson discusses strategies to overcome the struggles that young writers can encounter while writing. I was interested in her book No More “I’m Done!” Fostering Independent Writers in the Primary Grades because I feel like as a future teacher this could be a frequent problem among students. From reading this book, I hoped that I would learn useful strategies that I could use to help students overcome their problems with writing. After reading this book, I do believe that Jacobson has provided me with plenty of methods to use. I was surprised at the depth that she goes into in her text. There is a vast amount
The very first chapter we read of Mindful Writing changed my perspective to see that anyone and everyone can be a writer. Brian Jackson, the author of Mindful Writing, wrote, “In this book I want to convince you that anyone writing anything for any reason is a writer…Writing is not something we do just in school. It is a vital means of influence in all facets of life.” It was through that very first reading that I began to think about writing as more than just a dreaded part of school, and I began to think of myself as more than just a student forced to write. Our very first assignment, My Writing Story, helped me to reflect on my identity as a writer. I realized that I was a writer every time I wrote in my journal or captioned an Instagram post. Throughout the semester, as I came to love writing more with each paper I wrote, I was able to create my identity as a writer. I learned that I loved research and analyzing others’ thoughts and ideas, but that writing simply on my own opinions, wasn’t my favorite past time. Through the countless readings this semester, I saw which writing styles I loved and which didn’t speak to me. Each day of class, I chipped away at creating my identity as a writer, and I’m grateful for the lessons that helped me shape and realize that
writing” by R. Ramsey, the ability to write competently is a requirement for success in any field.
As I walked out of the courthouse and down the ramp, I looked at my mom in disappointment and embarrassment. Never wanting to return to that dreadful place, I slowly drug my feet back to the car. I wanted to curl up in a little ball and I didn't want anyone else to know what I had done. Gaining my composure, I finally got into the car. I didn't even want to hear what my mom had to say. My face was beat red and I was trying to hide my face in the palms of my hands because I knew what was about to come; she was going to start asking me questions, all of the questions I had been asking myself. Sure enough, after a short period of being in the car, the questions began.
Loosen Up Perfectionism: (noun) a disposition to regard anything short of perfection as unacceptable. From a very early age, I have always needed to have everything be “perfect”. I remember for my birthday one year, I got a hot pink Lisa Frank unicorn journal. It was beautiful, with pastel pink pages and a shiny silver lock to keep my pesky brother out. I never did write in that journal, only because I never wanted to tarnish its pages with words that weren’t just right.
I, for one, it was quite a stressful experience before this course. Starting the paper was one of the main challenging elements of the writing process which I was faced with most of the time. For many unproductive hours, I would simply stare blankly at my writing computer screen while blank thoughts ran through my mind. Nevertheless, among many techniques that I erudite, free-writing is one of the most important step of writing, and had proven to be effective on my writing process. With my problem of not being able to generate ideas to put down on the paper, free-writing has helped me a tremendously. Proper free-writing helps a writer in ways beyond his or her imagination. For instance, when you free-write, your brain generates ideas that even a writer himself or herself might find hard to engender or grasp. Since the writer is not restricted when free-writing, your imagination is your limitation; you reserve the right to literally write about any number of themes which comes to mind. From these themes which you generate, you can then select what you feel fits best your argument. This is the advantage that I have come to realize in free-writing. Through this course, I have come to learn that everything requires just enough preparation in order for someone to tackle a particular task. Free-writing my papers at first, has made me more aware of my progress throughout the entire time of writing and certain aspects of my paper that I can improve on. Additionally, Free-writing has helped me realize that your paper can always improve; there are always new ideas firing in your mind. With free-writing you are able to capture these ideas on paper as they come to mind time after time. For future writings I will continue to work on my time allocation. Allocating your time properly is a crucial step in the process of writing. This allows to have ample time to complete all the sections in your writing. I
“Ohh do you need to get through” my mother said kindly as she asked the man, while a grin spread across her
n modern composition classes, the academic writing is often used as another form of testing. Similarly in many English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) learning contexts, writing classes are shaped with a test-orientation aimed at achieving “native-like competence” as their goal (McKay, 2009, p. 39). This situation leads to the reality that ESL/EFL students’ writings have been focused more on their usage of language instead of creating spaces for those certain groups of writers to express their thoughts in English writing. Therefore, many ESL/EFL writers are facing the anxiety of composing in English. On the other hand, the widely using paradigmatic thinking and expository writing in the ESL/EFL writing class does not provide students opportunities to write about what they are interested in. As a result, those types of assignments reduce students’ motivation in writing in English writing. In order to allow students to have freedom and voices in their writing, many researchers have been working on the conceptions of freewriting and multigenre writing to motivate students to rediscover their joy of writing. In this essay, I firstly aim to discuss how students can benefit from mutligenre and freewriting tasks; and describe my design of a writing activity – “Message in a Bottle”; elaborates what skills ESL/EFL students can master through this activity and changes in their attitudes towards English writing.