Theory and Pedagogy for Instructors:    Teaching and Learning How to Start Writing

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How Can Freewriting Work as Critical Thinking?

Freewriting as a Heuristic Activity

            All "Theory" pages such as this are introductory essays for instructors learning to apply theory to pedagogy.  This page applies the educational theory of freewriting to student writing by discussing it as necessarily a form of critical thinking--specifically exploratory thinking--that creates discovery. 

           Many instructors think of freewriting as mere an expressive tool, one that expresses emotion, feeling, image, and thought mixed together--a creative form, one almost more appropropriate than--or at the least, borrowed from--creative writing.  However, freewriting in its proper usage actually is a form of critical thinking.  

            Freewriting as critical thinking must be heuristic to work well.  That is, it must be an exploratory tool that creates discovery.  Freewriting is so closely allied to critical thinking that it is reasonable to rename prewriting and freewriting "pre-thinking" and "freethinking," for that is exactly what such activities foster (Hilgers, 1980).  We know now that writing is thinking.  We also need to remember that just as good writing often uses freewriting, good thinking often uses freethinking.  Freethinking in a questioning mode is heuristic: it asks for discovery.  It encourages opening up, not narrowing or limiting, expansion rather than contraction, and tentativeness rather than assurance.  Elbow (1986), for example, defined such thinking as "first-order thinking" in Embracing Contraries and suggested that all generating is a form of thinking (p. 55).  Tom Anselmo, a leading expert in the field of critical thinking and writing, has described "much of the best thinking" as generative.  He said, with Leonard Bernstein and Carol Schoen in their textbook, Thinking and Writing in College, that it consists of "non-logical, free-associational, and intuitive leaps of the mind" (1986, p. vi).  And Edward de Bono (1991), whose work helped define the contemporary field of critical thinking, called critical thinking "generative thinking" in many respects: "practical, creative, and constructive, . . . messy, imperfect, impure and perhaps difficult to teach" (p. 16). 

Freewriting in the classroom as critical thinking generally takes the form of simple, general questions, spoken or unspoken.  A heuristic or exploratory approach works better by using questions: instead of giving a direction or command such as "Write about your favorite experience this week," it phrases the statement as a question: "What was your best experience this week?" Instead of saying, "Write everything you feel and know about abortion," an exploratory, questioning approach asks, "How do you feel about abortion?  What do you know about it?"  In this way, students are not providing information on demand as if they are scribes recopying what is inside them; rather, they are searching within and searching without, looking, and discovering.  Rather than trying to repeat certainties, they are, instead, posing possibilities.  Certainly, as Meyers (1986) suggested, the questions should be pertinent (p. 48), but the emphasis should be on asking students to think with an open stance before making final decisions (p. 29).  Because what they are saying is tentative, they may allow themselves to say much more, to explore more, and to see an expanded field of enquiry.

Though we usually think of freewriting as a process of discover, we often impute too little power and variety to the ways in which it operates as a tool generating such discovery.  C. Barbur, a student of mine at the University of Minnesota , said it all in collegiate idiom when I asked the class to “write about writing.”  I have placed a number in brackets at the beginning of each heuristic she mentions:

As I begin to write about writing, my mind dwells on the statement you made that writing is thinking.  I do agree with this, for [1] if you do not engage your mind, you simply stare at a blank sheet of paper or an empty computer screen. . . . 

            However, more than thinking, I feel that writing is learning.  There are many reasons I feel this way.  First, I am the type of person who can read a chapter and not get a thing out of it, but [2] if I put the information into a short written summary as I read, I have a clear understanding of the material.  It is as if the extra process of sending the message from my brain to my hand . . . cements the idea in my mind.

            Another reason I feel writing is learning is [3] the “Oh Yeah” reflex.  The “Oh Yeah” is the sudden spark, the significant detail, the perfect word or the catchy alliteration.  It is the idea or thought that pops up only because you were in the midst of writing.  [4] It is also a learning tool because you can proceed to use one spark in the current piece, and a spark spin-off in another.  [5] Sparks also teach you to include writing tools in future works.  For instance, if your spark on Tuesday was an alliteration, on Thursday you may knowingly write an alliteration into your piece.

            Finally, I feel writing is learning because of the “Roll.”  The Roll is a two-part skill.  The first is that while you are in the Roll, you are frantically writing—and [6] probably in ways you were unaware you could use, and [7] probably using ideas you were not in connection with beforehand.  The second part is the revision of the Roll, learning from your mistakes.  (personal communication, Fall 1999)

Barbur could have taught the class regarding freewriting.  She did well that term, and that is because she had grasped the essential idea that all students need to discover: permanent, life-changing learning is not photographic but rather creative: a heuristic or intellectual learning tool.

            For more on heuristic learning tools and critical thinking, see "Writing as Exploratory, Heuristic Critical Thinking" in the "Organizing and Editing" section and "The Importance of Teaching Metaphor" in the "Writing about Literature" section.

from "[heuristics essay in the Organization section]"

Extract the bibliography!

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