ACTIVE LEARNING TECHNIQUE 25
Pre-Post Freewrite
| Complexity involved in | |
| Planning | LOW |
| Developing Materials | LOW |
| Implementing in Class | LOW |
Description and Purpose
In a Pre-Post Freewrite, the instructor announces the lecture topic and asks students to write for three to five minutes, jotting down everything they know about the subject. The goal is for students to record as much information as possible without worrying about typical writing conventions such as grammar and punctuation. The instructor then lectures. At the end of the lecture, the instructor asks students to again write for five minutes, recording everything they know about the topic.
This technique is a “writing-to-learn” activity: a short, impromptu, and informal writing task done to help students think through the ideas that will be (and then were) presented in the lecture. The Pre-Freewrite portion of the activity requires students to focus on the topic at hand and activate their prior knowledge about a topic. They must bring this knowledge to the fore in order to write, which readies them for taking in new knowledge. Knowing they will write again at the end of the lecture helps them to focus their attention on what the lecturer is saying.
The Post-Freewrite activity enables students to generate new information and then compare their first writing to their second. Thus, students are able to see progress from the first iteration to the last iteration, which gives them a sense of the value of the lecture to their learning. Pre-Post Freewrite is also a useful assessment technique for instructors who can use the initial Pre-Freewrite to identify misconceptions and their comparison of the pre- and post-versions to assess knowledge gains.
Preparation
- Determine the main topic of your lecture. Craft a writing prompt for that topic; your prompt may be a single word (e.g., teaching), or it may be a statement about the topic that you wish for students to explore more fully (e.g., “Teachers are currently encouraged to use technology in their teaching.”).
- Determine how students will record their writing samples. You might provide them with a template in the form of a handout, such as the following (which you gather at the end of class), you may have them write on index cards (which you gather before and after a lecture), or you may ask them to record their responses in a journal, which you gather periodically.
Student name: ___________________________________________________
Date: ___________________________________________________Pre-Freewrite:
What I know about the topic already
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________Post-Freewrite:
What I learned from the lecture
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________ - Consider how you will end the Pre-Post Freewrite activity. You may want to ask students to review both writings to consider their gains and then ask them to rate their improvement. You may also hold a conversation about the most important learning gains they made during the lecture.
Procedures
- Announce the Pre-Post Freewrite activity, and tell students that they are to write about the lecture topic for a specified amount of time (e.g., three minutes). Tell them that they should write continuously without stopping and without worrying about punctuation or grammar. Assure them that you will not assess their work on the basis of writing conventions, such as spelling, grammar, or punctuation. Let students know as well that they will freewrite about the topic before and after the lecture.
- Announce the time limit, and let students know how you will signal that time has ended, whether by using a bell, flashing the lights, or simply calling time.
- Announce the prompt and ask students to begin writing.
- When you see students stopping before time has ended, prompt them to continue writing, even if they think they do not have anything more to say. Prompt with “just keep writing.”
- Announce the end of the activity; if you have planned to do so, gather student Pre-Freewrites.
- Give your lecture.
- Announce the Post-Freewrite activity, telling students that they are to again write about the lecture topic for five minutes. Tell them again that they should write continuously, without stopping, and without worrying about punctuation or grammar. Assure them that you will not assess their work on the basis of writing conventions, such as spelling, grammar, or punctuation.
- Remind students of the prompt and ask students to begin writing.
- When you see students stopping, prompt them to continue writing, with “just keep writing.”
- Announce the end of the activity and gather student Post-Freewrites.
| Video Lecture | Large Lecture |
| Ask students to freewrite as an assignment prior to a video lecture. You can make pre-lecture writing a prerequisite for viewing the video. After the lecture, ask them to freewrite again. They may submit their work as an assignment. | The challenge of this technique for the large lecture is the amount of content students can create. Consider having students keep their Freewrites in a journal that you assess periodically. |
Examples
Health and Wellness (Lecture)
In this mid-size course, the professor teaches several different topics related to health and wellness, with the goal of helping students to learn about, adopt, and maintain healthy lifestyles after college. One of the topics she addresses is nutrition and its relation to health and wellness.
At the beginning of her lecture on this topic, she asks students to freewrite everything they know about the recommended Dietary Guidelines for Americans for approximately five minutes. She next asks them to spend one minute describing the last meal they ate at a restaurant, including fast food restaurants, and assessing how well it meets the dietary guidelines.
Next she lectures on the topic of the dietary guidelines. She asks students to again freewrite as much as they know about the guidelines for five minutes and again assess their most recent meal experience dining out. She holds a discussion about their results prior to dismissing class. Students often note how much they have learned about the guidelines, and they suggest they are better prepared to choose healthy restaurant meals in the future.
Media History and Culture (Large Lecture)
The professor of this very large lecture course was a proponent of requiring students to engage in extensive written discourse. Indeed, one of the course goals was to help improve student writing skills and critical capacity for evaluating the roles played by the media in American history. The professor regularly asked students to create short lists or quickly written responses to a central question to help begin a class discussion. The professor also used Pre-Post Freewrites as a way to help students engage with lecture content.
The professor began each lecture segment by asking students to freewrite about the topic. The professor ended each lecture segment by asking students to freewrite again. He required students to keep a regular journal of their Freewrites and then submit them twice during the term for evaluation. He found that allowing students to express themselves informally through journal writing gave him the opportunity for a more complete assessment of each student's writing ability than he would have gotten through a combination of formal papers and examinations.
Spanish (Video Lecture)
The professor of a flipped intermediate Spanish course uses Pre-Post Freewrite regularly to complement his video lectures. Prior to a video lecture on the film La Familia, which is about a second-generation Mexican immigrant and his family, he asks students to freewrite about one of their own family members who is important to them; he also allows students to use fictional family members if they prefer. He asks them to write for five minutes without stopping, using no English words except for proper nouns (specifically names) when appropriate. He suggests that they keep it simple, but he encourages them to use as many adjectives as possible. He tells them to spell as accurately as they can, but he advises them not to get bogged down by it.
After students have submitted their assignments to the course learning management system (LMS), they are able to watch the film La Familia and his video lecture on the topic of the family in which he describes the various family members and tells how they are often featured in Hispanic culture and media.
At the end of his video lecture, he asks students to again freewrite about their own family members. He says they can use the initial Pre-Freewrite as a basis but should use what they learned in the film and in his video lecture in their augmented Post-Freewrite descriptions. He notices that the writing is always dramatically improved, and he believes this helps students feel a sense of accomplishment in their language learning. This also serves as a springboard for in-class discussion.
Variations and Extensions
- A variation of the Pre-Post Freewrite is a “shotgun” exercise. In this activity, students are instructed not to lift their pens or pencils from the paper (or fingers from the keyboard) while they are writing. If they believe they are out of things to say, they write “I have run out of things to say” until they think of something else to include.
- Another more structured variation is the 4-2-1 Freewrite. In this approach, students receive the prompt and write four big ideas. They pair and share ideas and select the two most important. They pair again, creating teams of four, and together they select the one idea that is the most important. They then write freely for five minutes.
- For a final variation, you may ask students to read their Freewrites to each other in pairs when they have completed it. They may hear interesting ideas in their own writing that they had not fully processed, or they may learn something from their peer's papers.
Observations and Advice
Some students may find the Pre-Post Freewrite to be challenging at first, particularly those who are not fond of writing, but they may appreciate it as they gain time and experience. It may take telling the students why they are doing it, and it may take more than one attempt for them to begin to feel comfortable and to see the value of the exercise.
The Pre-Post Freewrite makes a useful assessment tool, and you can gauge student progress by assessing the writing and counting the number of valid or interesting points they make. A simple check system, with a plus for a good point and minus for inaccuracies, can make for a quick count.
Key References and Resources
- Berkenkotter, C. (n.d.). Writing and problem solving. Retrieved from http://wac.colostate.edu/books/language_connections/chapter3.pdf
- TEAL. (2011). Just Write! guide. Retrieved from https://lincs.ed.gov/sites/default/files/TEAL_JustWriteGuide.pdf
- Tompkins, G. E. (1997). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Retrieved from https://hatrc.org/library/eoQl3/tompkins-literacy-21st-century-pdf.pdf