Minutes a day n e w y o r k

Freewriting Example
A student received the following essay assignment:
Adrienne Rich wrote: “Lying is done with words and also with silence.” Do you agree? Use your personal experience
and/or your observations to support your answer.
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B R A I N S T O R M I N G   T E C H N I Q U E S :   F R E E W R I T I N G   A N D   L I S T I N G
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Here is the result of a short freewriting session:
Do I agree? I think so. Is it a lie if you don’t say something when you know something? Not technically, but it has
the same effect, doesn’t it? I remember when I saw Jay with someone else but I didn’t tell Karen. She never came
out and asked me if Jay was cheating on her, but I knew. But that’s not really a lie is it so what do you call it?
But there are more important cases where not telling the truth can be deadly. Like if you know someone is plan-
ning to commit a crime, and you don’t tell anyone. Didn’t someone go to jail for not telling the police she knew
about the Oklahoma City bombing before it happened? But that’s not a lie, it’s just not telling, so not telling is
not the same as lying. But it can have equally terrible consequences. I guess the point is that you know a truth
but you don’t reveal it. So they’re not the same but they do the same thing. People can get hurt. Unless you believe
what you don’t know won’t hurt you. But that probably falls into the same category as a white lie. It’s the other
lies and other silences that are the problem.
During her freewriting session, this student came up with a couple of examples and, through them, found
a tentative thesis for her essay. She also brought up some issues that will be central to her argument, including the
definition of a lie and whether people have a moral obligation to speak up when they have certain kinds of knowl-
edge. You can also see that the student has several run-on sentences, some repetition, and a very informal style.
That is part of the freewriting technique.