Timed Free writes: one practice that serves many purposes

 I have been thinking a lot about timed free writes lately.  Like, a lot!  I have been thinking about how they are a fairly simple, easy to implement practice that solves a rather large number of challenges in a comprehension-based classroom.  While timed free writes (aka fluency writing) do not help students acquire language (only input that students can understand does that!), they are an amazingly useful tool.  In this post, I will share some of my big reasons for loving them, ideas about logistics for implementation, some frequently asked questions, and finally, some resources to help you. 

Here are a few common challenges that I feel like timed free writes have the potential to resolve:

• Students, families, and/or administrators feel like they are not "learning" without having long lists of vocabulary and conjugation practice.  
• Teachers need to write measurable goals for student learning (because they can't be trusted to just teach and assess, they have to do more than that...but that's another issue.)
• Teachers need students to produce written work in order to comply with department, school, or district assessment requirements.
• Departments want valid assessment that focus on student performance while allowing teachers the professional autonomy to teach in the way that they feel best serves their students. 
• There is an increased pressure on teachers to create portfolios and evidence of student learning; in particular, for student reflection and evidence of growth.  

Timed free writes have other benefits too, based on my observations and experience:

• They help students feel a sense of ownership of language; they can look at a page, or a chart tracking word counts, and see their growth.  This builds confidence, which builds motivation, which is, of course, a great thing.  
• The freedom to just write about anything can be pretty joyful for many students.
• Sometimes, students are willing to share what they really think and feel, and their writings provide a window into their lives and wellbeing.
• The teacher ends up with a whole lot of very personalized writings that are student-centered and usually very comprehensible.  These are a goldmine if you choose to use them. You can just type up a few and add them to your class library, or perhaps share them in class the following day.

So, aside from all these amazing benefits of Timed Free Writes, why do I love them?  Giving students the pressure of a time limit is the best way that I can think of to see what is really in their head. This leads to...

• Evidence, evidence, evidence. Evidence of what they really have in their head! On paper! 
• The joy of giving students their first writing from the beginning of the year on the last day of school: let them compare it to their most recent writing; there is truly nothing more incredible than listening to them share about their own growth.  
• The joy of having a predictable routine: this is how we spend 15 minutes a week. No planning necessary.
• When students write, so do I.  In the target language! If I knew the plot of the novel I am working on, it would probably be complete by now!  

Here's the nuts and bolts of timed free writes, as I use them in my classroom.  I learned most of what I do from Scott Benedict (Immediate Immersion), who deserves ALL the credit for helping me think this through and implement in my classroom.

Logistics

1) Teach the kids the expectations.

Mine are: write the whole time, it's ok to use the word supports on the walls but I want you to write as many words as possible and that will slow you down, the prompt I give is optional, write one word per line, and your story does not have to make sense. If you don't know how to say it in Spanish, say something else. Absolutely no talking.

2) Give an optional prompt.  

Sometimes, I used a silly picture from the internet. (Here are some great ones!) At other times, I created a little scene from props and stuffed animals.  Students who needed ideas could use the prompt as a starting place, OR they could write whatever they chose.

3) Use special paper. 

This paper that has a space for each word so it is easy and fast to graph word counts. I downloaded mine from Scott Benedict.  I copied mine on the back side of copies from the recycle bin in our school's copy room to save paper. 

4) Don't grade them at first.  

When and if you decide to grade them, read this first:  Grading Writings.  If you prefer to watch a video, here you go: Assessment Hacks and Hope.

5) Start when students have a lot of language in their head.  

My advice: start with novices about 9 weeks into the year, after a very rich diet of tons of listening and reading to language they understand.  I usually start 2nd year students writing in about the 3rd or 4th week of school.

6) Be consistent. 

Do this once a week.  If students complain, remind them that the expectation is to smile and be positive. In fact, I tell them that they are expected to cheer.  I have also been known to tell them that if they groan when I announce a free write, they have to do another one tomorrow. That usually ends the groans very quickly.  

7) Write for a predictable, short amount of time.

10 minutes is a good amount of time for students to write.  From start to finish, the whole activity, once we got into the swing of things, takes about 15 minutes.  

8) Set a goal- but remember it is just a goal, not a requirement. 

A common goal is for all students to be able to write 100 words in the target language in 10 minutes, and then reduce the minutes while keeping the goal. So, after everyone can do 100 in 10, try 100 in 9.  The purpose of this may be because a reasonable goal for fluent speakers is to write 100 words in five minutes in their first language.  

9) Students track word counts.

Ask students to keep track of their word counts in a graph and save their writings!  These portfolios are immensely powerful.  (Scroll down to download a data tracking sheet.) 

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some questions that I see all the time about implementing timed freewrites. Hopefully my answers will help you feel like you can do this in your own classroom!

What if a kid just writes one or two words over and over? Honestly, I have never had this happen.  My students with IEPs and 504s, students who struggled with writing, students who hated writing...they all were generally able to produce a few sentences.  But, if this happened,  I would consider the following: the student does not yet have much of a mental representation of language, so the task is not appropriate for them, yet.  Maybe while everyone else is writing, you sit with them and read texts that are comprehensible to them. 

There could also be other reasons for this- did they just have a terrible day? Is this more evidence that they need support and relationships rather than an assignment? Did their dog just die?  I would look at the whole picture of the student and decide how to respond based on a lot of different kinds of information.   

Do you let students look at the word walls in your room? Yes! But..I tell them that if they are relying on the words in the room to impress me, they are going to write less, and I want them to just spill out all the words.  But it's fine if they do!

Do you read all of them?  Nope. Not at all. *If your district requires you to read everything that students write, I would consider doing something different than what I suggest.* I did choose to read one group's worth of writing a week. And I tell them that! They didn't know which class's writings I was going to read!  However, after a few weeks, students started asking if I would read their writing, even if it wasn't for a grade, because they were proud of what they had written.  So, I invited them to put a star on the top, and when I collected them, I made sure to read those and either comment or talk to the writer.  

How do you grade them?  Read this: Grading writing for details about rubrics, error correction, and keeping the workload manageable. 

Do you let kids type? Actually, no.  Even when teaching virtually, I asked students to hand write their free writes and submit pictures of their writing immediately afterwards to our Learning Management System.  I know that for some teachers, this might be madness, but I don't want to open the box of translation/accents/etc.  Handwriting is just fine.  

Finally, I will leave you with this joyful piece of writing from a very special young lady.  Because it makes my day! 

Here is a collection of my favorite resources about timed writing.  Please leave questions below if you wish! 

Resources

THOUGHTS, IDEAS, PROCESSES, and IMPLEMENTATION

• SLOs and Teacher Goals (article by Elicia Cárdenas)
• CI Program Checklist by Lance Piantaggini (Magister P)

RUBRICS, PAPER, GRAPHS

• Quick Write Paper from Scott Benedict (Immediate Immersion)
• Universal Screener ($) by Martina Bex (Comprehensible Classroom) 
• FreeWrite form with rubrics ($) by Martina Bex (Comprehensible Classroom)
• Graph for Word Counts by Elicia Cárdenas (Deskless Classroom) 

EXAMPLES 

• Fluency Freewrites in Latin by Lance Piantaggini (Magister P)
• Student portfolio examples by Elicia Cárdenas (EliciaCardenas.com)

Grading Writings - it does not have to suck

I don't dread grading writing anymore.  Not since I...

• drank a whole lot of the standards-based grades kool-aid.  
• simplified my system and made it consistent (mostly).  
• spent some quality time with Scott Benedict and his grading system. (Some of best hours of my life if I consider how many hours I have gotten back from investing that time.  And Scott is pretty cool too.)

HACK #1 - Plan ahead: Only grade one class per week! (and don't assign writing assessments to every class at the same time).

I attempt to plan my weeks and units so that I almost never have two classes worth of writings to grade.  This is very intentional.  My time is MUCH better spent planning great units or taking care of myself, but feedback is important, so keeping it manageable is priority.    Plus, as MagisterP points out, time spent on assessment that is not input-based is time lost.  (To do this, I try to keep those assessments at 15 minutes or less- 10 or fewer for writing, and 5 for "caretaker" stuff- passing papers, discussing or clarifying directions, etc.  I use a timer.)

Hack #2: Put the rubric on the page you pass out.

Alternate: buy yourself some stamps with your rubric categories- I have Advanced, Proficient, and Developing made up from an on-line stamp maker and I love them.

This way I know exactly what I am assessing and the kids, if they wish to read it, do too.  Most of the time, I assess using a slightly modified ACTFL scale, available in a variety of flavors from Martina Bex's Universal Screener.  This product is the most life-saving of lifesavers.

Hack #3: Be consistent: Use the same rubric, or a variation of it, for everything. 

All my writing and speaking assessments are assessed on the same rubric (adapted from the Universal screener), but modified for level.

All my reading and listening (input) quizzes use the same rubric.

The difference is that in my honors classes, the expectations are higher (intermediate mid, intermediate low, novice high, novice mid) than in my standard classes (intermediate low, novice high, novice mid), but the rubrics are based on the same information.
In my classes, proficient is 85%.  For Spanish 2 at the end of the year, that is intermediate low, and for Spanish 1, it is Novice high.

Hack #4: Don't mark errors!

I do not mark errors.  Repeat: I DO NOT MARK ERRORS! I may keep note of a persistent error and try to work that into class over the next few weeks, or I may even do a grammar pop-up the following day, but that's it. Don't mark errors.  It does not help students and it is not a good use of your time.  For a student who really wants to know why they got one grade (and not another), they are welcome to come talk to me during my office hours before or after school, and I will spend time reviewing proficiency guidelines and their work.  I have had two kids ask in four years.

Tip: If you are looking for certain words, have kids underline them.  Sometimes it is ok to skim writing assessments, especially if you are really looking for just one or two things.  Think about it like reading for just one trait, like elementary school teachers do.  *This only applies to focused freewrites.* See more about them below.

Focused Freewrites vs. Timed Freewrites 
"Focused" (targeted) freewrites can be used as summative assessments at the end of targeted units.  This may be as simple as "use the words for runs, walks, and sees in a story." (In that case, the unit was focused on those words- it is one of the first units in Martina Bex's SOMOS curriculum.)  It may be more cultural: Compare and contrast the tradition of a quinceañera with a tradition in your own family.  The directions depend on the unit and the objectives.  Some CI teachers do not believe in these types of assessments (with very valid arguments against doing them) but in my school community, this is appropriate and useful.

Timed freewrites are done almost every week with almost every class.  (The exception is if we are doing a focused freewrite that week.  No reason to make them write twice!)  Students are given a sheet of paper (I downloaded mine from here) and write for a certain number of minutes.  We start at 10, and when all kids can reach 100 words, we write for 9 minutes, and so on.  Sometimes I give the kids an optional prompt- a silly photo from the internet, a vignette with the stuffed animals in my class, etc. but they can write about whatever they want.  The goal is fluency- a real look at what they can do with written language under pressure and no constraints.  Kids record their word count in a graph each week.

How I grade writing:

Focused: These can be given two grades: one on content (using a rubric adapted from...you guessed it: Scott Benedict) and the other for their overall level of proficiency. Another way to grade them is  whether they can use the target structures (with few errors, with some errors, with errors that impede meaning), and just mark their level of proficiency but not record it.=

Timed: I use the ACTFL levels, but my rubric has two extra sections inspired by and adapted from Scott Benedict's rubrics (found here).  I include:

• One thing that impressed me:__(I write it in)_ 
• One thing to work on for next time. This is in a checklist form and includes things like verb endings, spelling, increase vocabulary, add dialogue, verb tense, accents, longer sentences, hard to read, and other. 

These take longer, certainly, but are great windows into what has been truly acquired.  I roll a dice to decide who gets graded each week.  

The elephant: how do you actually know what is novice high?

OK, let's talk about the elephant in the room: what is novice high writing? How do you know what to mark it as?   If you are lucky enough to have done the OPI training from ACTFL, you might know the answer.  If not...I am going to save that topic for a later post.  Stay tuned!



Resources