Activities that provide students with opportunities to experiment with ideas, form, and style without the pressure associated with correctness.
The term “low-stakes” represents the level of expectation that a student and instructor bring to a particular assignment, meaning that low-stakes writing should count very little (if at all) toward the student’s final grade, while HIGH-STAKES WRITING is presumably graded and thus has quantitative consequences.
Examples of low-stakes writing include journals, reflective responses, creative drafting, and free-writing. Some scholars argue that the more frequently students engage in low-stakes writing, the more confidence and expertise they will apply to formal, high-stakes assignments.