Pre-Writing

So, after class last night, I don't want people to think that I am a pre-writing hater. I actually do think it is really valuable and a great skill to learn. My objection was merely to the instances when students are forced to employ a particular pre-writing strategy & are graded on that pre-writing. I wonder if my bad experiences with clustering were because it was the hot, new thing at that time that every teacher thought essential to a good essay. But, on the whole, I do believe that pre-writing, including clustering, is an important skill to teach, and I especially like the ideas of trying each technique in a group setting so that students can become familiar with all types and then choose which one suits them best.

However, I wonder how much time some of these strategies take to use. While I think all of them could be valuable, some of our students on an academic track will also be in timed-writing situations where they may not have time to draw out a cube & try to remember which details to include. Therefore, I think that it is important for them to find a strategy that works best for them in writing, but also a strategy (possibly the same one or maybe a completely different one) that works best in a timed-writing situation. I think that our writing is better when we think about it a little bit first before diving in, but if you only have one hour to write in a timed essay exam situation, you should not spend more than 10 minutes at most in pre-writing in my opinion. I welcome your comments on this!