Mission College    David Lang

Mission College | Mission College Directory

Home Engl 108A: Collage Topics How to Freewrite and Topics for Focused Freewriting (Acknowledgements to Peter Elbow for the ideas on this page) Freewriting Write whatever comes into your mind Freewriting is private, so you can write anything. Concentrate on your ideas, not on whether the words are the right words. Don't try to write grammatically correct sentences or spell correctly. Avoid crossing out or revising. It's just fine to jump from topic to topic. Freewriting doesn't have to be organized. Keep the pen moving! If you get stuck, you can write "I am stuck." Focused Freewriting Focused freewriting is the same as freewriting, except that you stick to a topic. (You can still jump around within the topic.) Topics: Write about a time when writing went well or badly. What was the topic, and who was the audience? Try to tell in detail how you went about writing and what happened. What can you learn from this experience? (You can do one focused freewriting on the good experience and one on the bad.) Write about someone who was important to your writing—a teacher, friend, or someone else who was helpful or harmful. (Try this more than once.) How do you feel about writing? What do you enjoy about it? What about writing makes you anxious? What are your strengths and weaknesses as a writer? What are some of the most helpful and least helpful things that teachers have done in assisting you with your writing? Invisible Writing (Focus freewrite this on your computer with the monitor turned off or covered with a cloth.) Write about the physical conditions for your writing. Where and when do you like to write? What implements do you use and why: pen, pencil, typewriter, computer? What kind of pad or paper? Do you need silence and solitude, or do you prefer to have music on and other people around? Introduction of Yourself as a Writer Introduce yourself as a writer. What are your strengths as a writer and learner? What are you proud of? What do you most want to learn about writing? What do you need from others in the class to do your best as a writer? What can you contribute to others so that they become stronger and more confident writers? Process Writing (Do this after you have done any of the above types of writing.) How did you feel as you began writing? Confident, anxious, bored, interested? As you wrote, did words come to you easily, or did you have difficulty finding words? Did you get stuck? What did you do if you did get stuck? Did you keep writing or stop writing? If you kept writing, not caring what you wrote, did that help you get over feeling stuck? Did you cross out any words? If so, why, and did crossing words out slow you down? Did you shift topics, jumping around with whatever came to your mind? If so, how did that feel? Did you write at the same pace throughout, or did you speed up and slow down?   Comment On This Page Updated: Saturday, February 12, 2005 at 8:43:44 AM by David Lang Login | Logout 3/15/2010; 2:26:38 PM

This site is using the Single Page theme.