Straight A student arrested over free writing exercise

[rkell87]

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/04/threat_level_pr/

"free writing" exercise with the following guidelines.

Write nonstop for a set period of time.
Do not make corrections as you write.
Keep writing, even if you have to write something like, "I don’t know what to write."
Write whatever comes into your mind.
Do not judge or censor what you are writing.
If your free writing is neat and coherent, you probably haven’t loosened up enough.

Chicago high school student Allen Lee, 18, was arrested and charged with "disorderly conduct" for writing an essay in creative writing class that his teacher found disturbing. He’s also been barred from classes at Cary-Grove High School, where he’s reportedly been a straight-A student. The Chicago Tribune reports that the teacher had "encouraged students to express their emotions through writing."......



link to paper

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/04/allen_lees_essa/

 

[rkell87]

could someone spell the word straight correctly in the title cause I suck apparently. Thanks

 

[Hoofbite]

could someone spell the word straight correctly in the title cause I suck apparently. Thanks

Thoughts of George on your mind.

 

[Bigdog]

The problem that I see is that you can't just write whatever coms in to your mind. He is in school and they are very sensitive to this matter as one might expect. The teacher should have gave them better guidelines than that. I mean we have freedom of speech in this country as long as it doesn't infringe on other people's rights. You can't yell fire in movie theater as people will get hurt.

 

[rkell87]

The problem that I see is that you can't just write whatever coms in to your mind. He is in school and they are very sensitive to this matter as one might expect. The teacher should have gave them better guidelines than that. I mean we have freedom of speech in this country as long as it doesn't infringe on other people's rights. You can't yell fire in movie theater as people will get hurt.

what I see he did wrong was bash the teacher he had to turn the assignment into. the other thing is saying he has dreams about shooting people then specifically mentioning his school and shooting in the same sentence even though he was saying the teacher would cause it and nothing about him doing it himself.

 

[SaltwaterServr]

Thing is, stream of consciousness writing exercises can be used to gauge a person's mentality in the same manner of a word association game, Rorschach test, or a "draw your family and home" exercise.

The contra is that the mind wanders and he could just be recalling stuff in his short term memory that has nothing to do with anything other than what he might have seen or heard in the last 24 hours.

 

[MonsterD]

Wow this was 5 years old, never heard of it though.

 

[CowboyMcCoy]

Thing is, stream of consciousness writing exercises can be used to gauge a person's mentality in the same manner of a word association game, Rorschach test, or a "draw your family and home" exercise.

The contra is that the mind wanders and he could just be recalling stuff in his short term memory that has nothing to do with anything other than what he might have seen or heard in the last 24 hours.

Or he could be writing something shocking. My favorite book is "Basketball Diaries"... If you think that paper is bad, you should read it.

 

[gmoney112]

A straight A student can't spell ballot?

 

[casmith07]

Well...they said it was free writing.

 

[CowboyMcCoy]

A straight A student can't spell ballot?

That's not indicative of much at that age.