This paper investigates the hypothesis that freewriting, when used as part of the writing process, will lead to more positive attitudes toward writing in a sample of advanced tenth grade students. An additional issue focuses on the level of positive attitudes of males when compared to females. Two intact classrooms taught by one teacher wrote weekly papers. The experimental group wrote freely, while the control group was restricted in topic choice, length and form of their writing. The experimental group received positive comments on the content of their writing, but the control group received standard error corrections on their writing. The subjects responded to an attitude instrument as pretest and posttest measures. The experimental group showed no significant increase in positive attitudes toward writing. Girls in both the experimental and comparison groups showed no more attitudes toward writing than pretesting or at post testing
