Using focused freewriting to stimulate ideas and foster critical thinking during prewriting

Research suggests that writing is a useful strategy for fostering critical thinking skills among students as it requires that they think about what to write and how to organise their thoughts. Yet, students of writing often face difficulty when it comes to providing the evidence to substantiate th...

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Main Authors:	Mohd Asraf, Ratnawati, Ahmed, Sabreena, Tan, Kok Eng
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	English Language Education Publishing, Brisbane 2018
Subjects:	PE English
Online Access:	http://irep.iium.edu.my/69396/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/69396/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/69396/1/69396_Using%20focused%20freewriting%20to%20stimulate%20ideas.pdf

id	iium-69396
recordtype	eprints
spelling	iium-693962019-02-15T08:08:41Z http://irep.iium.edu.my/69396/ Using focused freewriting to stimulate ideas and foster critical thinking during prewriting Mohd Asraf, Ratnawati Ahmed, Sabreena Tan, Kok Eng PE English Research suggests that writing is a useful strategy for fostering critical thinking skills among students as it requires that they think about what to write and how to organise their thoughts. Yet, students of writing often face difficulty when it comes to providing the evidence to substantiate their arguments or assertions. This paper describes how focused freewriting can be used to help ESOL students to think critically about a topic and to generate the ideas to support their arguments. In this study, nine students of a Malaysian ESOL writing course were given thought-provoking images or videos during the prewriting stages of their class and then asked to write non-stop for ten minutes about whatever that came to their minds after being shown the stimulus. This was then followed by a discussion led by the teacher on the themes that emerged from their brief write-up. The study found that focused freewriting helped the students to generate ideas more quickly and to write more fluently and independently during the prewriting stage. We posit that through focused freewriting sessions and follow-up discussions, instructors can help their students to generate ideas and to think critically about issues, hence facilitating their efforts at organising their arguments before writing academic essays. English Language Education Publishing, Brisbane 2018 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://irep.iium.edu.my/69396/1/69396_Using%20focused%20freewriting%20to%20stimulate%20ideas.pdf Mohd Asraf, Ratnawati and Ahmed, Sabreena and Tan, Kok Eng (2018) Using focused freewriting to stimulate ideas and foster critical thinking during prewriting. TESOL International Journal, 13 (4). pp. 67-81. ISSN 2094-3938 https://www.elejournals.com/1874/tesol-journal/tij-2018/tesol-international-journal-volume-13-issue-4-2018/
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	International Islamic University Malaysia
building	IIUM Repository
collection	Online Access
language	English
topic	PE English
spellingShingle	PE English Mohd Asraf, Ratnawati Ahmed, Sabreena Tan, Kok Eng Using focused freewriting to stimulate ideas and foster critical thinking during prewriting
description	Research suggests that writing is a useful strategy for fostering critical thinking skills among students as it requires that they think about what to write and how to organise their thoughts. Yet, students of writing often face difficulty when it comes to providing the evidence to substantiate their arguments or assertions. This paper describes how focused freewriting can be used to help ESOL students to think critically about a topic and to generate the ideas to support their arguments. In this study, nine students of a Malaysian ESOL writing course were given thought-provoking images or videos during the prewriting stages of their class and then asked to write non-stop for ten minutes about whatever that came to their minds after being shown the stimulus. This was then followed by a discussion led by the teacher on the themes that emerged from their brief write-up. The study found that focused freewriting helped the students to generate ideas more quickly and to write more fluently and independently during the prewriting stage. We posit that through focused freewriting sessions and follow-up discussions, instructors can help their students to generate ideas and to think critically about issues, hence facilitating their efforts at organising their arguments before writing academic essays.
format	Article
author	Mohd Asraf, Ratnawati Ahmed, Sabreena Tan, Kok Eng
author_facet	Mohd Asraf, Ratnawati Ahmed, Sabreena Tan, Kok Eng
author_sort	Mohd Asraf, Ratnawati
title	Using focused freewriting to stimulate ideas and foster critical thinking during prewriting
title_short	Using focused freewriting to stimulate ideas and foster critical thinking during prewriting
title_full	Using focused freewriting to stimulate ideas and foster critical thinking during prewriting
title_fullStr	Using focused freewriting to stimulate ideas and foster critical thinking during prewriting
title_full_unstemmed	Using focused freewriting to stimulate ideas and foster critical thinking during prewriting
title_sort	using focused freewriting to stimulate ideas and foster critical thinking during prewriting
publisher	English Language Education Publishing, Brisbane
publishDate	2018
url	http://irep.iium.edu.my/69396/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/69396/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/69396/1/69396_Using%20focused%20freewriting%20to%20stimulate%20ideas.pdf
first_indexed	2023-09-18T21:38:30Z
last_indexed	2023-09-18T21:38:30Z
_version_	1777412981492023296

Using focused freewriting to stimulate ideas and foster critical thinking during prewriting

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