The Cause of Writing Anxiety

24 essentially considered to be mentioned. The theories are on the nature, types, and benefit of freewriting.

a. The Nature of Freewriting

Accordin g to Elbow, “Freewriting is defined as writing any ideas or thoughts that come to mind in a given time period without stopping” Elbow. P, 1973. However, freewriting is broadly defined as writing without stopping and editing, has been viewed and used as a powerful technique for developing student’s writing since it was initially advocated by writing theorist Peter Elbow 1973, 1998. “Freewriting was one of the popular methods used during the late 1960 and early 1970 Fox Suhor, 1986 to improve writing fluency” Fox Suhor, 1986 as cited in Hwang, 2010. The general characteristic of freewriting can vary depending on context such as changing the amount of time allowed or giving a specific topic Fontaine, 1991 as cited in Hwang, 2010. MacArthur, C. A, Graham, S, Fitzg erald 2006 also stated that “It is an exercise in bringing together the process of producing words and putting them dow n on the page”. In addition, freewriting leads the writer to write any words produced which come ups to the mind and deliver it into the page. Elbow 1998 who is proponent of freewriting argues that students should not stop writing while doing freewriting because “the main thing about freewriting is that it is nonediting” as cited in Hwang, 2010. Thus, the EFL students may write everything freely in freewriting. Meanwhile , Langan stated that “freewriting means jotting down in rough sentences or phrases everything that comes to mind about a possible topic” Langan, 2005. Therefore, write everything that comes up to the mind can avoid 25 anxious feeling while writing. As Langan stated, “there is no need to feel inhibited, since mistakes do not count and students do not have to hand in their freewriting” Langan, 2005. The students do not need to feel shy and introverted to make mistake while they do freewriting.

b. Types of Freewriting

There are two types of freewriting; unguided freewriting and guided freewriting. Unguided freewriting is a type of freewriting which leads the students to experience bottom-up process of writing. In this type of freewriting, bottom-up means the students develop ideas by their own self-concept. While guided freewriting is a type of freewriting which leads the students to think inductively instead of make jumping ideas. Fontaine 1991 mentions in her study that unguided freewriting give students the opportunity to “make meaning with language” p. 13 by letting to write about what they were interested in as cited in Hwang, 2010. The students write about everything which interested to them, so that the result of the writing will be meaningful. According to Hwang, the main benefits of unguided freewriting are considered to be increasing writing fluency and finding self- concept Hwang, 2010. This process helped students organized and classified what they observed, and more importantly, they began to form much concrete self-concept by practicing freewriting Hwang, 2010. Hilgers 1980 reported that practicing unguided freewriting led his students to experience a bottom-up process. It is meant that students began to distance themselves from their