At university, students often use sources in their papers and write about topics that they have explored in classes (Carson, 2001). This type of writing may differ from what students are asked to produce on standardized English tests. In fact, many ESL classes use timed-writing prompts that are often washback from these standardized tests. Typical ESL writing assignments often use “bare” prompts without any context and ask students to write about their personal experiences. Students may have memorized responses to these generic prompts (He & Shi, 2008). For these reasons, the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), a popular standardized English test, has itself moved away from the practice of bare writing prompts, now including an integrated writing section where students read and listen before writing. Beyond this, there are other ways to make timed writing authentic and useful to students.
Faculty at the International English Center (IEC) are currently exploring different timed-writing prompts because, with a well-developed prompt, timed writing can be an effective classroom practice. From an assessment perspective, timed writing allows for more test security and can provide a clearer measure of students’ proficiency since they don’t receive outside help. Additionally, timed writing can also help develop students’ writing fluency. This fluency will serve them well at university where they will be able to complete writing assignments more efficiently. The question then is how to use timed-writing tasks effectively to assess students’ skills and to build writing fluency. This article will provide several ways of structuring timed-writing activities which can inspire both students and faculty:
1. Watch a Video: By providing input in the form of a video, faculty can build the students’ schema and provide content for their writing. These integrated listening and writing tasks, while still timed, are a better approximation of authentic university writing assignments. Research suggests that students may perform much better on these integrated-skills writing tasks, compared to independent writing tasks (Cumming et al., 2005; Plakans, 2008). For an example lesson for academic ESL students, see Staley (2018).
2. Brainstorm: Faculty can also use timed writing as a way to generate ideas for other, more formal writing tasks. For example, before writing an argumentative essay on globalization, students could write for twenty minutes about what they know about globalization. The focus of these activities is not on accuracy, but on fluency. By using the timed writing to brainstorm and activate schema, students have an opportunity to think through their ideas before writing more formally.
3. Finish an Example Essay: Faculty can use timed writing to focus students’ attention on organization and development. Rather than asking students to write an entire essay in 30-40 minutes, faculty could provide part of a sample essay and ask students to complete a body paragraph or conclusion. Then, students can demonstrate their understanding of the basic essay structure.
4. Practice Other Styles: Students will often have weeks to produce academic papers at university; however, they will need to quickly write emails, discussion posts, etc. Faculty can promote these other styles of writing in their timed-writing assignments.
5. Focus on Grammar: If grammar has been the focus of several lessons, then faculty could give a timed-writing prompt that elicits a certain grammar structure. The grade could be based primarily on the grammar in the writing.
6. Write Dialog Journals: In dialog journals, students write the instructor letters about whatever they feel is important to communicate. The instructor responds to the content of the letter, creating a private dialog between the student and teacher. This activity gives students space to share something personal. These journals can be a powerful practice that builds rapport.
7. Use Infographics: Infographics can quickly give students statistics to incorporate into their writing. This activity, inspired by Matthew Burrows at the IEC, can help students formulate ideas. It can also show how well students can cite and use outside sources. Consider providing an infographic with a traditional TOEFL-like prompt and see the difference in the development in students’ writing as they utilize this simple source. Here is an example infographic that I made using Canva, a graphic-design website.
8. Free write: Faculty members can also give students time to free write. Like speed reading, the practice of just writing quickly and focusing on fluency is beneficial. Some research suggests that this informal practice will help students with their subsequent academic essays (Huang, 2010).
9. Describe the Writing Process: Students can describe their own writing process, detailing how they find sources, what online tools they use, and where they receive outside help from. This can be done both before and after a formal writing assignment. Before a formal writing assignment, this can assist students with their time management and help them better reflect on their own writing process. After, it could be part of a self-reflection.
Faculty are currently doing some or all of these activities in their classes, but hopefully putting this list together in one place will remind people of all the choices there are for timed writing. It can be an inspiration for renewed creativity when making timed-writing activities. Hopefully, by having a variety of prompts, students themselves will be inspired to produce more developed and engaging timed-writing assignments.
References
Carson, J. (2001). A task analysis of reading and writing in academic contexts. In D. Belcher & A. Hirvela (Eds.), Linking literacies: Perspectives on L2 reading-writing connections (pp. 48-83). Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.
Cumming, A. Kantor, R., Kyoko B., Erdosy, U., Eouanzoui, K., & James, M. (2005). Differences in written discourse in independent and integrated prototype tasks for next generation TOEFL. Assessing Writing, 10(1), 5-43.
He, L., & Shi, L. (2008). ESL students’ perceptions and experiences of standardized English writing tests. Assessing Writing, 13(2), 130-149.
Hwang, J. A. (2010). A case study of the influence of freewriting on writing fluency and confidence of EFL college-level students. University of Hawai'I Second Language Studies Paper 28 (2).
Plakans, L. (2008). Comparing composing processes in writing-only and reading-to-write test tasks. Assessing Writing, 13(2), 111-129.
Staley, K. (2018). Transitioning IEC Students to Mainstream University Coursework. Flatiron Forum. Retrieved from: https://www.colorado.edu/flatironsforum/2018/05/14/transitioning-iec-stu...