The Role Of Brainstorming Use In Academic Success
According to McDowell (1999), brainstorming is "the act of defining a problem or idea and coming up with anything related to the topic – no matter how remote a suggestion may sound. All of these ideas are recorded and evaluated only after the brainstorming is completed. " Ledbetter (2010) defines brainstorming as the process of jotting down ideas spontaneously in preparation for various aspects of writing.
There are two types of brainstorming, individual brainstorming and group brainstorming. Manktelow (2000) confirms that a learner who brainstorms individually can produce a great amount of ideas than he or she does in group brainstorming because he/she will not worry about other people opinions which makes him or her more creative. However, individual brainstorming can be effective for generating many ideas but may be less effective at developing them. Group brainstorming means that students cooperate with each other to write down all the ideas that come to their mind. Simpson (2004) claims that group brainstorming generates more ideas than the individual one and can be very effective as it uses the experience and creativity of all members of the group. Bobb-Wolff (1996) confirms that brainstorming is a useful tool in the EFL classroom as it help students be able to generate more ideas to improve their learning process. Moreover, it enhances their autonomy of learning and self-responsibility as well as improves the student's participation and production in class.
Writing
According to Hacker, Keener and Kircher (2009), writing is “the production of thought for oneself or others under the direction of one’s goal-oriented metacognitive monitoring and control, and the translation of that thought into an external symbolic representation”. Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987) define writing as “a way for students in all content areas to make meaning for themselves”. Many studies have demonstrated the importance of writing for academic success. Mekheimer (2005) confirms that writing encourages thinking and learning, motivates communication, and makes thought available for reflection. When thought is written down, ideas can be examined, reconsidered, superseded, rearranged, and changed. Olshtain (2001) mentions the importance of writing as "it is via writing that a person can communicate a variety of messages to close or distant known or unknown readers". Bjork and Raisanen (1997) point out that writing is important because it is a useful tool for language development in all disciplines. Moreover, Bruning and Horn (2000) suggest writing as a “critical tool for intellectual and social development”.
Dujsik (2008) claims that writing is a complex process that needs an ability to generate ideas, use diction and grammar, organize sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into a larger piece of discourse with appropriate organizational patterns, and consider the writing purpose and audience.
Previous studies
Amoush (2015) conducted a study that aimed to address the impact of employing brainstorming strategy on improving writing performance of English Major Students at Balqa Applied University in Jordan. The study used a quasi-experimental design. It was conducted on 80 male and female university students. Participants were divided into three groups, two experimental groups and a controlled group. The experimental one was taught brainstorming techniques, while the controlled group followed the traditional way of teaching. They are studying English. A pre-post writing performance tests were used to examine the impact of using brainstorming on improving the students’ writing performance. The results revealed that the experimental group's writing performance was significantly better than the control group due to the efficiency of employing brainstorming strategy in enhancing students’ awareness of writing process.
The study of Manouchehry , Farangi, Fatemi , & Qaviketf (2014) aimed to investigate the effect of two brainstorming strategies on English as foreign language (EFL) learners' writing performance. It had a Qusi- experimental pretest-posttest control group design. The sample consisted of sixty (60) high school male students whose English level was intermediate. The Michigan Test of English Language Proficiency (MTELP) was used to determine their level of English proficiency. Then, they were divided into three groups where 20 of them were randomly assigned to the controlled group and 20 others to experimental group 1 and the last 20 ones to experimental group. First, the three groups received a pretest in writing. After that, the two experimental groups were instructed by brainstorming strategies. Then, all the groups had a posttest in writing an essay. Results revealed the two experimental groups performed significantly on the posttest higher than the pretest and also higher than the performance of controlled group. This indicated that instruction of brainstorm strategies had a positive effect on EFL learners’ writing achievements and made them more active and more aware of writing process.
