[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-598580-105":59,"doc-detail-598580-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","cf-27-thinking-through-freewriting-the-difficulties-of-thinking-through-freewriting","CF 27 - Thinking Through Freewriting - The Difficulties of Thinking Through Freewriting","","Freewriting, once seen as cutting-edge, has become a standard practice in college writing classrooms, often praised as easy, effortless, quick, and free of judgment. This essay challenges that assumption by arguing that classroom freewriting is not automatically natural for student writers and instead needs training, conversation, and reorientation. Teachers should also design ways to stimulate productive, questioning, and exploratory thinking within freewriting itself.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/cf-27-thinking-through-freewriting-the-difficulties-of-thinking-through-freewriting/598580/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/cf-27-thinking-through-freewriting-the-difficulties-of-thinking-through-freewriting/598580.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"A glass of water","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-04","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":29},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why does the essay question the common belief that freewriting is easy and effortless?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"Because the essay argues that the mode required to freewrite is not necessarily natural or automatic for student writers and instead requires training, conversation, and reorientation.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How does Peter Elbow’s work reframe freewriting?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"Elbow’s metaphor of “speaking onto the page” presents freewriting as tied to spoken-language mechanisms, reframing how its virtues are understood.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What do the essay’s suggestions ask writing teachers to do?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Teachers should reconsider not only how to add analytical reflection about freewriting, but also how to help students generate productive, questioning, and exploratory thinking during freewriting itself.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},598580,1792211035,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":29,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145},962090760832,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_155a257f0dc6eb9ab79c44ca47cae57d","CF 27: Thinking Through Freewriting by Hannah Rule Page 1 of 18  \nComposition Forum 27, Spring 2013 [http://compositionforum.com/issue/27/](http://compositionforum.com/issue/27/)  \nThe Difficulties of Thinking Through Freewriting  \n [[http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=compforum](http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=compforum)]  \nHannah Rule  \nAbstract: Once controversial or cutting-edge, freewriting has recently become “part of every writing teacher’s repertoire”(Bizzell and Herzberg in Elbow 393) . On par with outlining or webbing, freewriting seems to be a go-to practice in a writing teacher’s tool kit. This downshift into uncritical acceptance presents an apt moment to reconsider how we implement freewriting practices in the college writing classroom. Toward this reexamination, this essay problematizes the pervasive assumption about freewriting that it is above all else easy, effortless, quick, and free from judgment, hesitation, and doubt. The essay suggests that this assumed ease remains one of the thorniest and obscured problems in the practice of classroom-based freewriting and hypothesizes that the mode required to freewrite is not necessarily natural or automatic for student writers, but rather requires training, conversation, and reorientation. In order for freewriting to be an effective means of stimulating critical and creative thinking, teachers of writing need to consider not only how we can add in analytical and reflective thinking about freewriting texts, but also how we can get students to do productive, questioning, and exploratory thinking within freewriting itself.  \nAbove all, facilitators of freewriting can benefit from assuming the difficulties of thinking through freewriting.  \nIn his recent book, Vernacular Eloquence: What Speech Can Bring to Writing, Peter Elbow exploreshow the virtues of spoken language might be brought to written composition. Among implications for how we conceive of literacy, access, and the conventional divides between speech and writing, Vernacular Eloquence reconsiders one of Elbow’s most visible contributions to composition studies:  \nfreewriting. Elbow explains how his investigation of speech has caused him to see freewriting in yet another light:  \nI was freewriting my way out of a tangle of perplexity and I startled myself with a new thought: “I’m not just writing. I’m speaking . . . on to the page.” I realized that I was using the linguistic gear I normally use for talking. . . . This realization opened up a new way to see freewriting—hear freewriting—and at the same time it also opened up a new way to think about the very nature of speaking and writing. (147)  \nSpeaking onto the page is Elbow’s newest metaphor for conceptualizing the merits of freewriting, merits that familiarly still emphasize using “our fingers to put words onto the page or screen” and having “the words come to mind fluently, nonstop, without planning or conscious choosing”(147) .  \nWhile his consideration of speech brings Elbow to understand freewriting in a different register, the named advantages of freewriting are nonetheless familiar. As has been emphasized before, the freewriting mode is purportedly—above almost all else—easy, valued fundamentally for “how it effortlessly captures onto the page some of the precious virtues of unplanned spoken language”(152; emphasis added) . In Vernacular Eloquence, Elbow re-asserts that freewriting is a “fast easy way to get a first draft”; a “good way to avoid the reluctance and procrastination that so often stops us”; and that it “frees us from constant nagging by the internal editor”(156). Like speech, freewriting  \n[http://compositionforum.com/issue/27/freewriting.php](http://compositionforum.com/issue/27/freewriting.php)  \nCF 27: Thinking Through Freewriting by Hannah Rule Page 2 of 18  \ncontinues to be fast, free, and effortlessly generative, because, as Elbow writes in Writing With Power, it “help[s] you stand out of the way a","cbCaigVfsyqmzi11","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaigVfsyqmzi11","pdf",83500,18,"English","# The Difficulties of Thinking Through Freewriting\n## Challenging the Assumption of Ease\n## Freewriting as Speech on the Page\n## Claimed Benefits and Thinking Flexibility","[{\"question\":\"Why does the essay question the common belief that freewriting is easy and effortless?\",\"answer\":\"Because the essay argues that the mode required to freewrite is not necessarily natural or automatic for student writers and instead requires training, conversation, and reorientation.\"},{\"question\":\"How does Peter Elbow’s work reframe freewriting?\",\"answer\":\"Elbow’s metaphor of “speaking onto the page” presents freewriting as tied to spoken-language mechanisms, reframing how its virtues are understood.\"},{\"question\":\"What do the essay’s suggestions ask writing teachers to do?\",\"answer\":\"Teachers should reconsider not only how to add analytical reflection about freewriting, but also how to help students generate productive, questioning, and exploratory thinking during freewriting itself.\"}]","CF 27 - Thinking Through Freewriting - The Difficulties of Thinking Through Freewriting | PDF",1792087193,45]