Quickwrites and the Quest to Reverse Writing Reluctance

Jenna Dunn

Abstract

Current research suggests that students’ enjoyment of writing will positively impact their writing achievement (Graham, 2007; Bulut, 2017). Given this trend, the following study explores the extent to which quickwriting, a teaching strategy developed extensively by Donald Graves & Penny Kittle (2005) as well as Linda Rief (2018), impacts the attitudes of reluctant writers. A total of nineteen eleventh-grade students were interviewed in three focus groups. All of the students within the study experienced three weeks of regular classroom quickwriting along with one week of a quickwriting extension workshop prior to participation in the focus groups. Students were asked about their feelings towards writing and quickwriting. Student responses were analyzed predominantly for changes in writing disposition. While two thirds of focus group participants expressed either general dislike or conditional enjoyment for writing prior to the quickwriting unit, findings suggest that quickwriting has strong potential to improve students’ enjoyment of writing, regardless of initial levels of reluctance.