Writing creative and argumentative texts: What's the difference?

Exploring how task type affects students' writing behaviour and performance

Abstract

The aim of this study was to gain insight into writing processes of secondary school students when confronted with fictional and expressive creative writing prompts compared to argumentative writing prompts. Twenty participants (Grade 10-11) each wrote eight texts, four based on creative prompts, the other four based on argumentative prompts, within a set time. A keystroke logging program recorded participants' writing processes. Texts were rated on global quality. Writing motivation and creativity were measured as well. Results showed that creative text production processes had specific features. Students' writing processes were faster, more stable and resulted in longer texts, and fewer revisions. Furthermore, creative as well as argumentative text quality improved if students wrote longer texts in short production cycles. Explorative analyses showed that learner characteristics correlate with writing behaviour as well as with text quality. Students wrote longer texts, had higher writing speed, and wrote better texts when they reported a more positive attitude towards writing and considered themselves more creative. Finally, students who believed in their own creative ability and/or believed that writing requires personal commitment wrote significantly better creative texts. These findings are discussed in the light of the aim to re-introduce creative writing in the Dutch curriculum.