“Reshaping Student Writing Identities with Low Stakes Writing”
Director: Lucille McCarthy
Committee Member: Jody Shipka
My portfolio examines how low stakes writing exercises influence student writing identities, attitudes towards writing, and relationships with writing, all of which are partly defined by students’ associations with procrastination and writer’s block. The purpose of this portfolio is not to consider the effect of low stakes writing on the quality of student essays but to evaluate the impact of low stakes writing exercises on student writing identities. While a decrease in instances of procrastination and writer’s block may lead to a higher quality essay, this portfolio examines how low stakes writing assignments can limit these particular challenges experienced by student writers and yield a considerable change in students’ relationships with the act of writing. This portfolio features students writing about their own writing, their own successes and failures, and their individual perspectives and opinions on their experiences within an English Composition (ENGL 100) course at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).