To freewrite or not to freewrite?

In “But What If I Can’t Freewrite?” Chapter Nine of Lane’s After the End, I am again reminded that there is no one right way to write. If there was, we would be out of jobs. And people probably wouldn’t be so in love with words written and spoken as many of them are. Lane’s discussion of how useless it is to ask some students to free write (or whatever exercise you would like to insert here) makes me question some of my classroom practice. I am always careful to let students know that I don’t expect every writing exercise I introduce to be useful to all of them, that I am trying to give them tools they can utilize if they work. And I am confident that all of them will walk out with a few tools they feel confident can help them in their writing. However, I do expect all of my students to make a good-faith attempt at every exercise we practice. And a good-faith effort often means pushing through for awhile even if it is difficult. I am unsure of whether Lane would agree with my practice. Frankly, in a ten week quarter, we often only get to explore a handful of exercises and practices and we only get to try each one out a few times. Within this structure, I am not sure how else to ask my students to attempt the writing process. Every once in a while, a student will ask me if they can do something a little different because they know freewriting (for example) doesn’t work for them, so they want to use a different model for a reading response or pre-writing. If we’re further along in the quarter, I usually say okay. I wonder if I should make this an option for everyone instead of waiting for a student come to me. Or if I should give them an option of two every time. Maybe I will try this out next quarter.