Low Stakes Writing

Amongst students, reading and writing are often considered more daunting tasks compared to speaking and listening. Although some have made the argument that writing in an educational setting is easier because it allows students to share their understanding in a private way the process of writing is considered strictly academic to some. Those who were lacking in writing skills, me included, can relate to the frustration of constructing an introduction paragraph, thesis statement, and so on. A majority of the time I spent writing my high school essays were actually spent erasing and rewriting sentences on subjects that I understood, but could never explain in an articulate manner. For that reason, how writing is handled in the classroom has been a main concern of mine since the beginning of this course. In her article, Paula Bourque states that students need to have a lot of exposure to writing in order to build stamina. This is a fact that is obvious to many of us and has been verified by our previous readings but there is an underlying question that is often …show more content…
Implementing both low stakes writing along with graded essays and short answer texts can also build stamina by having students constantly engaged in writing, Low stakes writing can best be described as an informal mapping of ideas. Implementing low stakes writing in a class allows for the student to find the words without the fear of making minor grammatical errors that they might be too focused on when writing an academic paper. Peter Elbow also introduces the concept of low and high stake responses for teachers. He carries a similar sentiment to the Bourque in that critical responses should be used on high stakes writing and kept to a minimum. Our responses as teachers must match the type of writing that students are presenting to