Student Anxiety and Writing

Based on what I've heard teachers say and on my own experiences, most of our adult students would rather do anything than write. Research shows that learning can't take place if the learner is experiencing fear. When I do PD on writing, I tell teachers that one of the first things that will help students be better writers is to build their fluency and confidence. One way to do this is to introduce writing territories: Writing Territories (from Nancie Atwell - Lessons that Change Writers) can be anything in our lives that can be used as story ideas.  This can be  family, events, achievements, wishes & dreams, passionate ideas, places, fears, or songs. Things that are real (meaning they come alive) hold more possibilities for richer writing than those one time stories. These starting points can be added to the list throughout the year.

Yes students are expected to be able to write for postsecondary and the workplace but getting them started by having them write about what they know and teaching skills in that context seems to me a good way to get them ready for those more academic tasks. 

Out of the 8 very good ideas from the article, these are the ones that resonated most with me:

1. Students should write more because the more you write, the less anxiety you experience about writing. Also, the more you write, the better you get at writing.

4.  Not all writing is equal, but all writing matters.

7.  Students write best when they’re writing about things they’re interested in or care about.

I was drawn to this thread because of the word ‘anxiety’. I am always anxious with writing task. I still remember when I was doing my undergrad studies, I took the whole duration from the time the assignment was given to the time it was due to write. During exams, I would take the whole 3 hours allocated to write and I wouldn’t even request for extra papers. I was jealous of my friends who could write so much in such a short period of time. Now that I am teaching, I sometimes forgot how it feels like to be anxious when writing.

I especially like 3 of the propositions made by Mr. Warner:

2. Orienting the stakes of writing exclusively around grades adjudicated by the instructor likely increases anxiety and reduces quality. 

5. Practicing rigor in writing is important, but rigor is not synonymous with length, or complexity, or even the amount of time spent on the writing

7. Students write best when they’re writing about things they’re interested in or care about. 

The biggest challenges for writing in my students' case are poor language proficiency and limited background knowledge. They are in secondary school and a lot of the types of writing require them to write outside of their immediate context or comfort zone. For example, they have to write about current issues like recycling, gangsterism and global warming. They are village people, some of them hail from families who are seafarers and sea gypsies. Imagine asking them to write about all these topics. No amount of anchoring (new information to existing schemata) seem useful because these issues are totally new to them. They have to construct a new schemata to fit in all this information. 

I really like what Jamie is doing with her students - free writing. I should do that with my students (in fact, I should try it too). The students in my class didn’t always get to choose what to write about, except in preparation for oral or spoken activities which normally involved topics familiar to them such as food, hobbies, and dreams. Because their English proficiency is low, they cannot speak impromptu so I allowed them to prepare a script beforehand. Even though it’s technically not a writing task, the students enjoyed it because they can write about things they were comfortable with and they were excited to share a little bit about themselves to their classmates. Plus, their writing was not graded so they were not too concerned about getting it right. They were more concerned about getting it across. However, I corrected their drafts and made them rewrite the ‘script’ 2 or 3 times more to ensure quality writing (and consequently speaking). 

While I really like the idea of just having students freely write for a specific amount of time, most of my student don't know where to begin. What I use in my classroom to get my student to write is "The Idiom of the Week" I have a book of idioms that I choose from and write one on the board. I have the students write what they think the idiom means and then we discuss their answers. After we discuss their thoughts, I then explain the actual meaning and we discuss vocabulary if needed. The next thing we do is write a paragraph applying the idiom to a real life situation. I tell the student that it does not have to be a personal experience , but one that could happen. Volunteers share their stories, which most times is a personal experience. This gives the students practice writing, using critical thinking, reading out loud and we get to know each other better through shared experiences. The last idiom we wrote about was "Ignorance is Bliss". I shared my experience of having a daughter study in Ecuador for three months. I was so happy for her to have this experience until I learned that she was staying in a "room" out in back of the family's house with a stray dog she had found. Talk about anxiety!

I was drawn to Di and Dr. Perin's comments about incorporating self-talk into writing instruction as a strategy for reducing anxiety in the classroom.  It is important to empower all learners to see themselves as writers, and I have found self-statements to be a great way to do this, particularly with students who lack confidence.  I appreciated Warner’s solution 6, ¨Experimentation and failure as a method of practice should be encouraged and valued.”  I think it is valuable to recognize that writing is a work in progress, and to help students incorporate this language into their self-statements.