definition, advantages, disadvantages,marking scheme for free writing

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FREE WRITING
Free writing might include a topic as a general guide, or it might not. While students are doing free
writing, they focus less on accuracy and more on fluency. It is essential to keep writing down your
thoughts without worrying about grammar, spelling or punctuation. The purpose of the exercise
varies, but it can be used to generate ideas and to clear out distracting thoughts. Free writing can
enhance students’ expertise, make their English more proficient and help them to reflect their own
writing style. On the other hand, it means helps to separate the process of producing a piece of
writing from the process of revising it. There are various possible forms of free writing, such as
journals, essays, and fiction writing.
The example of free writing is when teacher gives a general topic to the students without any
guidelines or pictures, then students will freely write based on the topic solely with their own
ideas.
1. FOCUS GROUP: Advanced level students

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2. OBJECTIVES
Students will be able to:
1. Engage in informal writing assignment.
2. Engage in formal writing assignment that require utilization of all stages of the writing
process.
3. Choose and use a relevant pre-writing strategy that will help them to prepare for the
assignment.
4. Write several rough drafts of a paper to revise clarity and depth of content or to edit style
and mechanics.
5. Engage in revision in the following areas:
 Language, style, information, structure appropriate to the purpose and selected audience
 Incorporation of sentence variety (simple, compound, complex)
 Clear, accurate language, understandable
 Fluent and accurate transition between sentences, ideas and paragraph
 Addition of details and support
 Deletion of unnecessary words, phrases, sentences
 Use of teacher and/or peer feedback to improve writing
6. Engage in proof reading in the following areas:
 Subject verb agreement
 Parallel structure
 Complete sentences (avoiding fragments, comma spice and run-ons)
 Capitalization

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 Verb tense consistency
 Punctuation
7. Evaluate their own writing according to established criteria.
8. Publish their works in various genres and for various audiences and purposes.
3. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF FREE WRITING
Advantages :
 The writer could improve their writing skills by editing and revise the essay before
publishing it.
 Allows for someone to work on their writing skills without the pressure of having to
follow some specific guidelines.
 Encourages critical thinking by offering a larger view on a given topic.
 Could be look upon by a student as a way to improve a grade.
 Students may also learn how to learn how to give constructive criticism at the peer
conferencing stage.
 Encouraging students to enhance their creativity and imagination.
Disadvantages:
 Extremely time consuming.
 Lack of guidelines as a time to slack off and end up getting nothing real done, and not
improving in their writing skills.

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 Some students struggle with writing independently and need extra guidance.
4. DESCRIBE IN STAGES ON HOW TO DESIGN AND CREATE THIS TECHNIQUE
(INCLUDES TOGETHER MATERIALS THAT YOUR GROUP USED)
PROCESS OF FREE WRITING
1. Pre-writing
 Brainstroming
 Listing
 Quickwrite
 Mind-mapping
 Organizing ideas
2. Writing
 Drafting
 Getting feedback from teachers and peer conferencing.
 Revising /rewriting
 Editing /correction
3. Publication
 Presentation
 Display

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1. PRE-WRITING
When the topic is announced by the teacher or decided on collectively by the class,
called out as many ideas and write it down. There is no rejection, all ideas are accepted. The
emphasis is on quantity. Search for ideas and ends when the students begin to write the first draft.
A number of techniques may be used to encourage the generation of ideas:
A. Brainstorming – students need to call out many ideas as possible (in words or simple
phrases). Accept all suggestion and no rejection of the ideas. The emphasis is on quantity.
B. Listing – students are encourage to list every idea that are related to the topic. Listing ensures
that they have a record of all the ideas that cross their mind before they forget it while thinking
about the next idea.
C. Quickwrite – with the title given, and the opening sentence, pupils write as much as they can
in five minutes. They have to write without pausing on every line. After 5 minutes, they have
to stop writing. They can exchange the quickwrite with each other, peer-reading and discuss
the ideas generated.
D. Mind mapping - Like brainstorming, mind-mapping begins with the teacher writing the key-
word in the centre of the board. The ideas generated are written around the key-word and
linked to it. Example :

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E. Organizing ideas -through brainstorming, students will have more than enough ideas for their
writing task. The next step is to select and organize these ideas and get pupils to work by
themselves to decide which ideas to include in their composition-most important is to decide
where to put the ideas, the beginning, the middle or the end of the composition.
2. WRITING
a. Drafting – students write the first draft based on the plan they have made.
Encourage students to bear in mind the purpose and audience as they write so that
they can select the most suitable words, style and sentence construction.
b. Feedback / Conferencing – the most important stage in the process of writing
because the students will receive most guidance on how to improve their writing
skills. It focuses on content and meaning and the conference should be brief and

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straight to the point. Teacher’s role is to formulate questions that will support the
students’ effort in writing. For example :
 What is the essay about?
 Why are you writing about it ?
 Who is your audience?
c. Rewriting/revising - Students re-write their compositions incorporating insights
from the conference. Students must think as they re-write and not merely copy the
draft. It encourages students to think as they re-write and add ideas. Ask the
questions to help them with their revision. Questions such as :
 Does your draft seem to have an interesting main idea?
 Is there anything in the text that does not relate to what you are trying to write
about?
 Do you feel the relationship between your ideas is clear? How can you make it
clearer?
 Can you substitute any of the words in you writing to make it more precise?
You must ask this questions in a form your students can understand.
d. Editing -Teacher collects the revised compositions and edit students’ writing,
concentrating on content, organization, grammar and sentence structure. This
encourages students to proof-read their compositions before handing them in to
remove unnecessary mistakes.

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3. PUBLISHING
Publishing is sharing one’s writing with an audience. The final products should be
displayed or published to reinforce the concept of an audience. It is necessary to show
students why they must proof-read their papers and ensure there are no mistakes in their
final copies.
5. MARKING SCHEME AND EVALUATION.
A. Holistic Marking
 A method where a piece of writing is evaluated for its overall quality.
 This marking system involves a top-down view of writing.
 Teachers are also trained not to become overly concerned with any one aspect of
writing but to see it as a whole.
 Assigns a single score to represent a weighing of the whole work.
Holistic rating scale:
4 points 3 points 2 points 1 point
 the main idea
was clearly
stated
 the essay was
well organized
 the choice of
words was good
 the main idea
was fairly clear
 the essay was
moderately well
organized
 the vocabulary
was good
 the main idea
was indicated,
but not clearly
 the essay was not
so well
organized
 the vocabulary
 the main idea
was hard to
identify
 the essay was
poorly organized
 the vocabulary
was weak

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 very few minor
grammatical
errors
 some minor
grammatical
errors
choice was fair
 some major
grammatical
errors
 many
grammatical
errors
Holistic scores are usually arrived at by comparing individual student essays to model essays
representing good, fair, and poor achievement. It is suitable to use in the longer composition.
Advantages of holistic marking:
 Emphasis students’ strength than on their weaknesses
 Relatively higher degree of rater reliability
 It is not time-consuming
 Applicable to the assessment of many different topic
Disadvantages of holistic marking:
 Student may not know the reason for his or her grade on the writing. Most raters usually
make some end comment holistically to give the student some idea of why the essay was
better or worse than the model essays.
 The single score may actually mask differences across individual compositions.
Ways of evaluating holistic marking.
Holistic marking which takes a top-down view of writing. You can scan pupil’s writing quickly
to form an overall impression and then read the composition more carefully a second time to find
evidence for justifying your first impression. You then give the child your comments, starting

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with the overall impression and with a focus on the child’s idea. After that, give comments on
how he can improve his writing so that he can build his strength.
B. Analytic Marking
 A method where the marking is done on separate criteria, with weightings according to
their relative importance.
 Teachers usually use this type of marking when they want to evaluate other skills beside
the content of the writing.
 Example of criterion are originality of content, organization, vocabulary, and grammar.
 Analytic marking offers better agreement between examiners.
Analytic rating scale:
Originality of
content
Organization Vocabulary Grammar
 4 points:
interesting ideas
were stated
clearly
 3 points:
interesting ideas
were stated
fairly clearly
 2 points: ideas
 4 points: well
organized
 3 points: fairly
well organized
 2 points: loosely
organized
 1 point: ideas
disconnected
 4 points: very
effective choice
of words
 3 points:
effective choice
of words
 2 points: fairly
good
vocabulary
 4 points: almost
no errors
 3 points: few
minor errors
 2 points: some
errors
 1 point: many
errors

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somewhat
unclear
 1 point: ideas
not clear
 1 point: limited
vocabulary
range of
vocabulary
Advantages of analytical marking:
 Can make the provision of detailed feedback for students easier as students can receive
much information from their marks for each of the criteria.
 Analytical marking systems can make marking easier when the work being assessed is
long.
 Provide a clear guidelines in grading in the form of the various components.
Disadvantages of analytical marking:
 It is time-consuming. Teachers who score analytically usually are required to make as
many as 11 separate judgments about one piece of writing.
 Negative feedback can be pedagogically destructive. Teachers who combine analytic
scoring with confrontational or unclear comments- especially issues of grammar may
actually inhibit student growth.
Ways of evaluating analytical marking
Divides the available marks between different criteria. Each criteria is assigned a portion of the
available mark and the sum of all the marks gives the total mark. Teachers usually use this type
of marking when they want to evaluate other skills beside the content of the writing.

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C. Selective Marking
 Teacher will have to decide which error to correct.
 Teacher first informs students about what criteria they should be following in
their writing.
 While evaluating the composition, teacher will ignore the other ‘error’ and only
pay attention to the target skills.
Advantages of selective marking:
 It is not time-consuming.
 Easier to mark.
 Pupils can improve in a particular skill since the teacher already informs them what the
criteria he or she wants to focus to.
Disadvantages of selective marking:
 Teachers are considered as lazy or careless if they overlook students’ errors.
 Pupils may want the teacher to mark every error in the writing.
Ways to evaluate selective marking.
Selective marking for this kind of marking, inform students about what criteria they should be
following in their writing. This can be done by, telling students before they start writing, ‘Today I
want you to pay special attention to how you can link ideas.’ or you can focus on a skill or a
combination of skills in the pre-writing stage. Then, when you evaluate students’ composition,
you ignore the other errors and only pay attention to the target skills.

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6. LESSON PLAN
CLASS : YEAR 5
FOCUS : WRITING SKILL
THEME : WORLD OF KNOWLEDGE
TOPIC : TYPES OF CREATURE THAT LIVE IN THE OCEAN
TIME : 1 HOUR
VOCABULARY : TYPES, CREATURES, OCEAN
PROFICIENCY LEVEL: ADVANCED
CONTENT STANDARD
By the end of the 6-year primary schooling, pupils will be able to:
1.1 form letters and words in neat legible print including cursive writing
1.2 use appropriate vocabulary and correct grammar to get their meaning across clearly.
LEARNING STANDARD:
2.2 Able to write in neat legible print with correct spelling:
a) phrases

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b) sentences
c) paragraph
2.3 Able to use punctuation correctly.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
By the end of the lesson, pupils should be able to:
1. construct an essay correctly based on the topic given.
2. organize ideas correctly in the essay.
MATERIAL: Flashcard
THINKING SKILLS : Planning, composing, producing, writing.
Stage/
duration
Content/skills/
knowledge
Teaching & learning
activities
Remarks/ rationale/
AVA
Set Induction
(10minutes)
Writing
1. Teacher greets the pupils.
2. Teacher pastes the flashcards of
the animals in the ocean on the
whiteboard.
3. Students provide feedback
AVA: flashcards to let
pupils know what they
are going to learn in the
class
Pre-write
(15 minutes) Writing
1. Teacher tells the pupils about the
specific topic which is “TYPES
OF CREATURE THAT LIVE
IN THE OCEANS”.
2. Pupils are asked to call out many
ideas for the topic
3. Teacher writes the ideas in a mind
map form on the board.
4. Pupils are asked to organize the
ideas.
To provide more
information about the
types of animal that live
in the ocean.

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While-write
(20 minutes)
Writing
Speaking
1. Pupils then begin to write their
first draft of the essay.
2. Then, pupils read what they have
written, and they are allowed to
make some changes and edit
what they have written.
3. Students show the ideas to each
other in a small group
4. Students exchange feedback with
each other.
To offer
opportunities
to the pupils to
correct their essays
Post-write
(10 minutes) Writing
1. Pupils are given a few minutes to
write the last piece of their essay.
2. Pupils submit their essays to
teacher.
To familiarize pupils on
how to write an essay.
Closure Writing 1. Teacher recalls with pupils what
they have learnt today in class.
2. Teacher ends the lesson
To ensure pupils
understanding and
recall the process of
writing
Marking scheme
For this lesson, teacher use holistic marking. As the learning objective required students to
construct an essay based on the stages. Holistic marking is the most suitable. The marking scheme
evaluate the writing for its content and organization of the writing.

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Appendix 1

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REFERENCE.
http://faculty.scf.edu/sharric/lesson9/lesson9topic2.htm
http://www.liferichpublishing.com/AuthorResources/General/5-Step-Writing-Process.aspx
http://www.bcps.org/offices/lis/writing/secondary/process.html