Computer-Supported Freewriting：Improving Writing Attitude and Idea Generation

Abstract

Most students in Taiwan feel anxiety or suffering when teachers ask them to write compositions in class because writing might be viewed as a complex problem solving process and they often lack self-confidence in their writing abilities. Pre-writing has been recognized as especially relevant to successful writing at the beginning. Therefore, it is important to make students be willing to write something without fear at the pre-writing stage and improve their writing attitudes. The paper presents a computer-supported freewriting system (CSFWS) integrated with extensive reading pedagogy in order to improve their attitudes toward writing and to facilitate students’ writing idea generation. The results show that after participating freewriting activities by the proposed CSFWS system, students become more positive in writing attitudes. Namely, students have more confidence and willingness in writing in their daily school life. The study found that when the difficulty level of writing topic is corresponding to students’ writing abilities, students will be more productive. In addition, students’ diction in freewriting should be further evaluated.