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The first day--the first 10 minutes--of the Institute we learned the “rules” of freewriting, which was essentially, “don’t stop writing.” Freewriting created a sense of safety so that I was much more willing to share what I had written. Freewriting “freed” me from an audience. I did not need to fabricate something positive just to be positive. I could finally write in my voice, from my mind. The big Aha! for me was that in order to teach writing I needed to write myself and become comfortable in my own skin as a writer. If freewriting was the way that helped me, maybe it would help teachers in my school to feel more comfortable to write and, in turn, ask students to write.
Teaching reading was no problem in my school. Yet when it came to teaching writing, many teachers were hesitant to engage in a conversation about the teaching of writing and allow me into their classrooms to help them. Through writing, reflection, and research during the Institute, I found the steps necessary to increase teachers’ comfort levels with writing.
Translating a Professional Development Experience Into Professional Development
Before school began after my experience in the Summer Institute, I met with the Literacy Committee at the school. The committee consisted of a group of teachers who had been supportive of literacy initiatives at our school and were some of the strongest supporters of implementing innovative writing and literacy approaches.
I thought the best place to start was with freewriting. During the Summer Institute, we read Peter Elbow’s Writing Without Teachers (1998), and our group wrote daily. I knew I could not recreate the institute with the short amount of time I met with teachers each month, but I also knew freewriting only takes a few minutes. I was hopeful that, through the process, teachers in my building would begin to see themselves as writers—just like I had begun to do in the summer.
The meeting with this group seemed like the perfect time to try to incorporate freewriting. When the meeting began, I outlined basic guidelines for freewriting on the whiteboard (Figure 1). I asked the group to spend a few minutes writing with these guidelines in mind, and I told them we would share–as much or as little—as they were comfortable. One teacher cocked his head as if to say, “Are you serious?” When I got out my paper and began writing with them, he realized I was serious, and he began to write, too. In fact, he wrote that he thought I was joking when I asked the group to write. During the summer, I had learned that saying “thank you” was a way to acknowledge writing that was shared but also move away from focusing on evaluation or critique. As a writer in the summer, “thank you” was a non-judgmental response that freed me as the writer and freed the audience from feeling like they needed to immediately evaluate what I just wrote. Like the Summer Institute, at the conclusion of this writing time, I told the group, “Thank you for sharing” (Franklin, 2010). This represented appreciated listening and kept the group from evaluating the writing that was shared. After a few people shared their writing, others began mouthing “thank you,” and a few offered audible thanks.
Freewriting Guidelines
-Don't stop! Keep your pen on
the paper and keep writing
even if you do not know what
to say.
-Your written words are private.
-You don't have to stay on one
topic.
-Don't think about spelling,
grammar, or mechanics.
-Don't worry about how good
the writing is.
Figure 1 - Freewriting Guidelines