student writing

I agree with Jared... the problem students are not really addressed in this article. I think they should be! How do we inspire students who are not interested to write? Certainly marking their papers with red ink everywhere is not going to help anything, but I wonder if there is some way they could be inspired. I was thinking about what we were talking about the other day and maybe it would be a good idea to give students opportunities in writing where grammar is not relevant or necessary and they can write however they'd please; maybe it would inspire them to let loose a little! Of course, we would also need to assign formal papers that need to focus on grammar and the specifics. Would this be confusing to the students? I can see how it could be but I think it could also be beneficial. If students become more comforable with free writing and idea writing maybe they would be more receptive to trying something a little more formal? I mean as long as they know there is a time for personal writing and a time for formal writing could this technique be successful?