Entries Tagged 'Brainstorming' ↓

Although it’s is one of the most necessary and helpful steps of the writing process, brainstorming can stump a reluctant writer—even if she’s using a worksheet, graphic organizer, or parent prompting.

You:    What comes to mind when you think of the beach?
Child: Sand and water.
You:    Great! What else?
Child: That’s all I can think of.

And that’s on a good day!

Prime the Pump

When students have a deep “well” of words and ideas from which to draw, their compositions becomes more vivid and concrete. That’s why WriteShop repeatedly emphasizes the need for adequate brainstorming as a routine part of the writing process. But if their well is dry and they can’t come up with enough words or ideas, their compositions will fall flat.

To keep ideas fresh and flowing, students need to prime their writing pumps on a regular basis. By practicing frequent brainstorming—especially when there’s no added pressure to write a composition—they’ll discover that they can think of words more quickly and abundantly. An activity like the Writing Well is a perfect training tool!

The Writing Well

The “Writing Well” is designed to stimulate vocabulary, ideas, and impressions on a particular topic. It makes a good pre-writing activity, but it’s really brainstorming practice in disguise!

Kept in a small notebook, these brainstorming results can also become a “seed book”—a resource, word bank, or collection of ideas—when writing future compositions.

Student Directions

1. You will find it helpful to keep your “Writing Well” in a spiral notebook for easy reference.
2. Use a separate page for each topic. You may use both front and back if you wish.
3. Before beginning, choose a topic and write it at the top of the page. Then set the timer to write for five full minutes.
4. The purpose of this exercise is to write down all the words, phrases, or sentences that come to mind about your chosen topic within the five minutes allotted.

If you get stuck, try some of these ideas:

• Picture the topic in your mind. Use your five senses—sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell—to describe details.
• Ask yourself questions about the subject matter—who? what? when? where? why? how?
• Use a photograph or magazine picture to jog your thoughts.

At first this activity may seem difficult. You may wonder: How can I write about one thing for five whole minutes? Relax! Over time you’ll find that it has become more natural to transfer ideas from your head to your paper.

Some of these exercises will lend themselves to becoming compositions. Put a colorful star at the top of the page if you might like to develop this into a paragraph or story in the future.

Parent Tips

In the beginning, your child may have trouble writing for five full minutes. Perhaps you could set the timer for three minutes, then increase it to four, and finally to five over the course of several weeks.

If your student brainstorms very generally about a topic, you might suggest next time that she narrow her topic even further. For example, if she writes on the topic of animals, she’ll probably include a list of many kinds of animals. Next time, have her select just one of those animals (such as dogs, monkeys, or whales) and make a “Writing Well” for that subtopic, including as many details as she can.

Should your student repeatedly make lists of words only, challenge her to begin writing descriptive phrases, too. Sometimes these will be factual and sometimes experiential. For example:

If she’s writing about “red,” words and phrases might include:

• ketchup
• stop signs
• making Valentines for my family
• embers glowing in the fireplace
• fire engines
• Dorothy’s ruby slippers
• the crimson sunset on our vacation in California  

If she’s writing about Grandma, phrases might include:

• baking chocolate cookies together
• lives in an apartment in Miami
• smells sweet like roses
• takes a ceramics class in her clubhouse
• silver hair
• favorite color is pink

The random list of ”red” words and phrases probably won’t ever be developed into a paragraph. On the other hand, the “Grandma” list definitely has potential to become a great descriptive composition at some point.

Writing Well Topics

Are you ready? Dip your ladle deep into the Writing Well and pull up a full, soaking draught of words and ideas. Then spill them over a fresh page—and let the writing begin. Here are some topics to get you started!

• a famous place I would like to visit
• my dream car
• gardens
• books
• animals (farm animals, jungle creatures, pets, birds, insects)
• birthdays
• the beach
• fishing
• obeying
• snow
• sounds that make me happy (nervous, afraid)
• my childhood toys
• my favorite meal
• my grandpa (or other family member)
• our pantry
• Saturdays
• things I like about myself
• heaven
• the color blue (orange, yellow, gray, green)
• things that make me feel cozy
• new uses for duct tape
• If cars could fly…
• If I had to live underwater…

Copyright © 2012 Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

. . . . .

“The Writing Well” is one of the supplemental writing activities tucked into the appendix of the Teacher’s Manual for WriteShop I and II.

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Flickr. Other photos courtesy of stock.xchg. Used with permission.

You may think of writing as a hands-off subject: just give a child a piece of paper and a writing prompt and let him at it, right?

Well, not always. See, writing is a subject that must be taught in order for most children to learn and improve. A schoolteacher stands at the chalkboard, demonstrates writing methods, and explains new concepts. As homeschoolers, we may not need to stand in front of our “class” to teach a lesson, but our kids still need us to model for them at each point along the way—including brainstorming.

MODELING

When you teach a child to make his bed or do his own laundry, first you show him, and then you do it together, before you expect him to complete the task on his own.

Working together like this during writing also trains children in good brainstorming habits. If you just hand them the worksheet and skip the part where you model various techniques on a larger writing surface, you’re missing a golden opportunity to teach them how to think before they write. Eventually, you can let the reins out a bit as they demonstrate their ability to follow instructions and brainstorm properly, but for now, make sure you’re working together.

THE PURPOSE OF BRAINSTORMING

Most children are simply not used to brainstorming. Unless they’ve been trained in the art of story planning, they’re much more likely to do one of two things when it’s time to write:

• Freeze at the sight of the blank page and barely scrawl out a couple of weak sentences. The end result is little more than a mess of smudges and teardrops.
• Try to move a massive swirl of ideas from head to paper but wind up losing their focus. They’re left with a rambling, disjointed story that has too many characters, irrelevant bits of storyline, and lots of rabbit trails.

(Yes? You have one of these children? I see you nodding your head!)

The goal of a brainstorming worksheet is simply to help jumpstart the writing. Graphic organizers aren’t meant for writing full sentences, but for writing lists of words and short phrases. As you discuss story ideas together and jot details on your larger example, your student can copy the ones he likes onto his own worksheet.

Later, when he refers to the worksheet during writing time, the list of concrete words and other details will jog his memory and keep his writing from taking tangents. Brainstorming keeps him on track.

HOW TO BRAINSTORM TOGETHER

Draw a large 9-grid on a whiteboard or other writing surface. Discuss ideas for the beginning of the story. On your large example, write down three details that could happen, one in each box. Talk about:

• What could happen first to introduce the story;
• What happens second; and
• What happens next.

Have your child draw a quick stick-figure sketch in each box on his own worksheet that represents each of these details. He does not need to add words at this time, but if he does, he should just copy the simple details (again, not complete sentences) you’ve written on your chart.

Do the same for the middle of the story, jotting down very simple words/phrases that could happen first, second and third in the middle of the story.

For the ending, jot down what could happen first, next, and last to bring the story to a satisfying end.

If your student prefers not to draw pictures, that’s okay; he can write words. Just encourage him to write LISTS of words rather than complete sentences. (Brevity is key during brainstorming.) Then, he can flesh out his ideas when it’s time to write his story.

. . . . .

WriteShop Junior is a partnership between parent/teacher and student, because that’s how writing is best taught. Book D, the first in the series will be released this fall. You’ll love all the hands-on activities and tools, including a brainstorming worksheet and detailed instructions for each writing lesson.

We’ve all experienced it. The blank page seems more foe than friend, whether we’re the ones facing that expanse of white or whether we’re encouraging our children to blast through writer’s block.

Sometimes oral descriptions can pave the way to written descriptions, gently opening kids to their own creativity. Try the following thinking game the next time your young ones protest, ”But I don’t know what to say!”

See how many answers each child can think of for each item below. Keep an informal score for a friendly competition.

1.) Describe one thing you might see in a…

• refrigerator
• living room
• closet
• car

2.) Describe two things you might find…

• at the library
• in a craft-supply store
• on the playground
• at an amusement park

3.) Describe something you see…

• in the autumn
• in the winter
• at the beach
• in a restaurant

4.) Describe something you might wear…

• in a rainstorm
• to a costume party
• on a snowy day
• to play a sport

Now, have your children choose one of their oral responses and elaborate upon it in written words.

“Writer’s block? What writer’s block?” you’ll be mumbling to yourself, as the kids scribble away!

. . . . .

Janet Wagner is a regular contributor to In Our Write Minds. For over two decades, Janet was an elementary and middle school teacher in two Christian academies, a public district school, and a public charter school. She also had the honor of helping to homeschool her two nieces. Janet and her husband Dean live on the family farm in the Piedmont region of north central North Carolina. Currently, she enjoys a flexible life of homemaking, volunteering, reading, writing, tutoring students and training dogs, and learning how to build websites. You can view her web work-in-progress at www.creative-writing-ideas-and-activities.com.

“But I don’t know what to write about!” 

“I can’t think of anything!”

How many times have we heard these cries of anguish when asking our children to face a blank page? And although we may do our best to encourage their creative efforts through the use of topic-specific prompts, sometimes we need to give kids more direction, more of a step-ladder to climb into the clarity of their own thinking.

Smaller Steps

The next time you’re faced with kids who are absolutely convinced the power of the pen has abandoned them, try breaking the prompt itself down into manageable parts. Doing so allows children to concentrate on one task at a time and to experience feedback in developing their ideas for written expression.

The “I Remember” Activity

Let’s use the prompt “Write about a favorite memory” as an example of breaking a writing topic into smaller chunks of ideas. This activity gives a feeling for the writing process approach and works well with any age.

• Think of five things that have happened to you. Write down each of the five things, beginning with the phrase, “I remember.” When you’ve finished, share your ideas with me.
• Now, write down one name associated with each of the five things you selected.
• Write down the most important of the five senses (taste, touch, hearing, sight, or smell) that goes with each of your “I remembers.”
• Now select the “I remember” you would most like to write about. Share the memory with me.
• Now, writing as fast as you can for ten minutes, see how much of the memory you can get on paper. Don’t worry about punctuation or spelling; you can think about that later, if you like what you’ve written.
• Now, let’s read your story and think of ways to possibly make it even better.

By tackling a topic in this step-by-step manner, students become more confident and skilled in the brainstorming and drafting stages of writing. And as they will discover, fluent writing flows from the power of knowing you have something to say.

. . . . .

Janet Wagner is a regular contributor to In Our Write Minds. For over two decades, Janet was an elementary and middle school teacher in two Christian academies, a public district school, and a public charter school. She also had the honor of helping to homeschool her two nieces. Janet and her husband Dean live on the family farm in the Piedmont region of north central North Carolina. Currently, she enjoys a flexible life of homemaking, volunteering, reading, writing, tutoring students and training dogs, and learning how to build websites. You can view her web work-in-progress at www.creative-writing-ideas-and-activities.com.

I recently overheard someone claim that teaching students to brainstorm is a futile exercise. “In the real world, no one actually brainstorms,” she said. “We just write.”

This statement surprised me, for it reminded me of taking a trip with little more than a vague notion of a plan (“I want to see the USA”). You can set off on your trek, but without a map, timetable, or sightseeing strategy, you’ll end up rabbit-trailing your way to your journey’s end.

While this may be fine for a bohemian, it can frustrate the traveler who really wants to visit a particular landmark but can’t find the turnoff; annoy her for missing some must-see points of interest because she lingered too long in a mediocre little town; and aggravate her when she finds herself going in circles. Worse, she could end up seeing nothing at all because she has absolutely no idea which way to go.

It’s fun to be spontaneous, but to get the most from a road trip, there’s nothing like an itinerary.

The Value of Brainstorming

Like a free-spirited traveler, a writer may have a general idea of where he wants to go. He may even know a point or two he wants to make along the way. But without a sense of direction, he too will miss important details, spend unnecessary time on a trivial side note, or spin his wheels in one rut or another.

One of the most valuable pre-writing tools for launching the writing process and avoiding other pitfalls is brainstorming.

Students often struggle with knowing how to move from a general topic to a written essay because that paralyzing blank page stands in the way. Brainstorming is a problem-solving process that helps you:

• Think freely and openly about your topic.
• Put pen to paper as you write whatever ideas come to mind.
• Explore possibilities and connections between ideas.
• Let new ideas form and shape old ones.
• Start to bring order and organization to your scattered thoughts.

Most importantly, brainstorming has no wrong answers. It allows you to think through your topic without fear of criticism or perfection.

3 Steps of the Brainstorming Process

• Free-listing: Free-listing helps you develop an initial page of ideas about the topic by writing absolutely anything—key words, phrases, examples, main points, subpoints, details, illustrations—that come to mind to jog your thoughts about your subject. Free-listing uses the heuristic inquiry, more commonly known as the 5 Ws (and an H)—who, what, when, where, why, how. Once this primary list is “complete,” note which of your ideas would qualify as main points or categories and which would be better suited as supporting details or examples.
• Mind-mapping: Next, filter your free-listing ideas through a semantic mind-map. A semantic mind-map is used to represent ideas, words, or thoughts that are connected to and organized around a central key word or concept. Mind-maps are designed to help create, visualize, classify, and structure ideas.
• Re-listing: Finally, organize your ideas according to the groups or clusters created by the semantic mind-map. Identify the central idea (main point) of the various clusters and list supporting details beneath and prioritize these clusters/main points into a logical order. Re-listing results in a rudimentary outline of your initial thoughts and ideas.

The brainstorming process reminds me of a coin-sorting machine. You start off with a jumbled, disorganized pile of coins (ideas). Nickels, dimes, quarters, pennies—there’s no rhyme or reason to their scattered placement on the kitchen table. This is your initial attempt at free-listing.

To start putting the coins in their appropriate place, you gather them up and put them into a coin-sorting machine (semantic mind-map). The machine divides the coins (ideas) by kind, just like the bubbles of a mind-map divide your ideas by category.

Finally, watch as your coins come out of the sorting machine in rows of quarters, dimes, and nickels neatly arranged (re-list). In this way, putting your ideas through a mind-map will help you rearrange them into newly organized lists that set the priorities for your paper.

Taking the Trip

You think about the gazillion places you want to visit; explore websites and sort through piles of travel brochures; plot out a route; and plan the details. Along the way you may take a detour or explore a new place, but you’ll never stray far from your original plan. Because you took time to brainstorm, your readers will enjoy the journey with you—and will thank you for being such an excellent guide!

Copyright 2011 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved. 

There’s nothing quite like a blank page to ruin a perfectly good day.

We need to put words to paper, but they will not come. The blank page intimidates us. The objects in the room call, our eyes wander, and our mind runs to places that are more desirable. We struggle to come back to the page with pen in hand. In the meantime, the white space has grown in intensity, until it is blinding. –Richard Mansel, “The Fear of the Blank Page“

It can be a formidable foe, this empty field of white—especially for the child who struggles to coax even a short string of words from his reluctant pen.

Fortunately, there are simple things you can do to help the most reluctant student find his footing—or at least his voice. Let’s look at nine ways you can encourage your child to face (and perhaps even conquer!) that blank sheet of paper.

1. Write first thing. 

Consider starting the school day with a writing activity, while attitudes are still positive and minds feel more creative. Facing an unpleasant or challenging task earlier in the day—when your children are fresh and alert—may be the key to unlocking ideas.

2. Brainstorm separately before beginning to write.

Jotting down random thoughts—no matter how jumbled—can help release a log jam of words and phrases. Encourage your kids to brainstorm before beginning any writing assignment.

3. Set parameters for the assignment.

Few children find it freeing to hear: “Write about whatever you want.” The vastness of total choice can overwhelm even the most eager writer, so establish some boundaries for the assignment. For example:

• Specify the kind of writing. Will the composition be a personal narrative? A persuasive essay? A descriptive piece? 
• Let students choose a topic within a particular genre such as mystery or adventure, or within a current area of study such as pioneer days or the Great Depression. 
• Give expectations regarding composition length or number of sources you require. 

4. Offer story prompts.

StoryBuilders are creative writing-prompt cards that let students choose a character, character trait, setting, and plot as the launching place for a zany (or serious) story. Mixing and matching elements of a story can unlock creativity and open the door for some fun writing experiences.

5. Give topic options and choices.

Encourage students to write about favorite, familiar topics—dogs, ballet, skateboarding, Legos, karate, etc. The more they enjoy the subject matter, the more vested they’ll be in the writing project.

6. Start with a personal experience or familiar story.

It can make an excellent foundation for a new story. Your children don’t always have to come up with something unique—it’s totally fine for them to retell a fable, fairytale, folktale, or other familiar story in their own words.

7. Provide a photo.

Pictures—especially those that “speak a thousand words”—make great prompts for generating story or narrative ideas. When searching for photos online, you’ll want to preview sites for appropriate content. That said, consider finding inspiration from one of these:

• National Geographic Photography 
• 30 Examples of Perfectly Timed Action Photography
• Stunning Photographs with Meaning

8. Do some or all of the writing.

By the time a thought makes its way from brain to hand to paper, the reluctant or learning-challenged student has lost her grasp on the idea, and it simply drifts away. Letting her dictate allows you to capture those words before they dissipate. Then, once they’re written, she can more easily rearrange and modify.

9. Encourage a “rough draft” mindset.

Students who think their first draft should be perfect can gain a lot from adjusting their thinking. Writing is a debugging process. Starting sloppy deals a blow to the blank page as the student plays with early ideas and gets into the writing flow. As author and poet Margaret Atwood so aptly put it: “If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.”

Humphrey the Cat belongs to author Nancy I. Sanders. he has his own writing blog, Writing According to Humphrey, where he shares helpful writing tips. From time to time, I’ll feature some of his articles here (with permission from Nancy, of course). Today we get to learn about “Word Walls According to Humphrey.”

Short of ideas for a story you’re writing? Does your brain feel like a sieve with all the ideas drained out?

Here’s a tip to help you brainstorm and get those creative juices flowing:

Make a Portable Word Wall

A Word Wall is used to help elementary children get ideas and learn words that are related to the main theme. It’s also known as a Word Bank. For instance, if children are learning about farm animals, the teacher posts a picture of a barn on a bulletin board. Then, she posts words underneath the picture such as cow, sheep, pig, hen, and duck. When children are writing and get stuck for ideas, they look at the word wall and choose words from the list that they want in their story.

I like to make Word Walls, too! I figure, why let the kids have all the fun? We kitties like to have fun, too!

You can make a portable Word Wall that’s as fun as it is practical. Get a file folder. On the front, decorate it with a picture of the theme of your story or book. For instance, I made a portable Word Wall when I wrote a story where I was the star. (I actually made my published debut in Clubhouse Jr.!)

Then, open up the file folder. On the inside write any word or phrase that comes to mind about the theme of your story or book. For example, my Word Wall about me includes the following words and phrases: purrfect, pawsitively, paws/pause, nine lives, cat-a-tonic, cat-alogue, tuna fish, etc.

Keep adding to your Word Wall when you think of more words and phrases. Then, next time you sit down and get stuck writing, pull out that Word Wall and see how it helps jump-start your creativity!

Here you can see me with a set of color-coded word walls I made. One color has nouns like tuna and fish. Another color has adjectives like tuna fish. Did I mention that tuna fish is my favorite word to write about?

 . . . . .

WriteShop Primary by Nancy I. Sanders is filled with games, crafts, and tools such as Portable Word Banks—fun activities that help you introduce important skills to your littlest writers.

“Word Walls According to Humphrey” ©2011 Nancy I. Sanders. Used by permission.

Quick! Take this survey:

1. Do your students complain about having to edit and revise their compositions and essays?
2. Do they hate having to spend several days on the same writing topic (brainstorming, writing a draft, self-editing, and revising)?
3. Do they become apathetic and lose steam by the time they get to the final draft?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, I have good news: Your kids are completely normal! But short of dragging them across broken glass or hot coals, how can you teach them to embrace the steps of the process as a natural, expected part of writing? 

Writing Is Hard Work

If you’ve not used a formal writing program before, it’s possible that the writing process is new to your children. Regardless, they’re not alone. I wish there were a magic wand I could wave over them to help them like it better, but in truth, writing is hard work, and it takes time and discipline. 

Unless they’re making lists, journaling, or emailing a friend, most writing does require planning, drafting, editing, and revising. This would be true whether you use WriteShop, some other writing program, or simply create your own writing assignments.

Typically, students want to write a paper once and be done with it. They don’t want to brainstorm, and they certainly don’t want to rewrite it. But whether or not these steps of the writing process are built into the curriculum (as they are with WriteShop), it’s really important for children to come to terms with the reality that this is how writers—from students to professional authors—write.

A Look at the Writing Process

There are three main parts of the writing process: brainstorming, writing, and editing and revising.

Brainstorming

The student who just sits down to write without having first brainstormed will either stare at the page with a blank look, unable to think of anything, or she’ll write in a fairly disorganized fashion, repeat herself, include unnecessary detail, or omit key ideas. Even in timed-writing sessions, students are encouraged to dash out a quick outline to help them focus on what the question is asking and to keep them from drifting off-topic as they write. Simply, brainstorming focuses a writer. It helps her choose details, plan and organize her story or report, stay on track, and avoid tangents. 

Writing

Writing is done in stages. The first draft serves to get those rough, new ideas onto the paper. By its very design, the first draft is meant to be revised later.

Editing and revising

Whether or not your child agrees, every paper benefits from revision, and editing gives her a chance to make some modifications. Even this blog article was edited and revised many times before I posted it. I don’t just try to catch typos; I also want to make sure my answers are complete and clear, my thoughts are organized, and my tone is professional yet conversational. This self-editing process tends to be subjective for most of us because we feel an emotional attachment to each and every word. That’s exactly why your child needs to turn her work in to you for objective feedback: She needs an outside opinion in order to write a more polished final draft  

Helping Your Student “Get It”

OK. You and I agree that the writing process is important. Yet the $20,000 question remains: How do we get our kids on board? Again, there are no magic answers, but I can offer a few ideas:

Show your teen she’s not alone.

Your student may feel as though she’s the only one who has to plan, write, and revise her compositions. Discovering that the writing process is universal may help her back down a bit. For fun, you might ask her to do a Google search for the term “writing process.” I bet she’ll be surprised to find over 21 million results!

Give freedom to a creative child.

It’s natural to expect a negative response from a reluctant, resistant writer. But if a student who normally loves writing fits this profile too, maybe she feels her creativity is being stifled when she is asked to brainstorm or make changes to her text.

First and foremost, give such a student the freedom to write for the sheer joy of writing—plays, stories, poems, whatever she loves! Separate these experiences from her writing lesson by not requiring her to plan or revise these stories. For her, use the writing process to teach skills in the same way that math drills, piano lessons, or other repetitive activities teach, reinforce, and offer practice. Let her write to her heart’s delight in her free time, but also require her to learn discipline through the structure of the writing process.

Use analogies.

As a parent, I’m sure all this makes sense to you. The hard part is communicating it to your student. I find that analogies can help explain things so that she can get it too. Here are some past blog articles that deal with the writing process. Several offer different analogies that compare the writing process with things like gardening, cooking, scrapbooking, and spelunking (caving). See if one or two of these analogies spark understanding in your reluctant student. 

• Your child’s writing: Garden or weed patch?
• What’s your favorite part of writing?
• News flash! Kids hate to self edit
• 6 simple truths  
• How is a writer like a spelunker?
• 10 stumbling blocks to writing (11-part series)

Point to the future.

Students who choose to go to college quickly discover that the writing process is taught there as well. And as much as they may grumble and complain, it’s to their benefit to plan, draft, and improve each piece of writing.

Among curriculum sites, public schools, universities, and professional writers’ blogs and websites, the writing process is regarded as key to success. To help your teen see how vital these repetitive skills are, even at the college and professional level, here are a couple of outside sources that further explain the purpose and various stages of the writing process.

• Links to dozens of university writing center websites
• The Writing Process  
• Effective Business Writing: The Writing Process

Start Young

In the end, there’s no shortcut to bypass the writing process. Planning and revising are as important to a composition or essay’s success as the actual writing. The best way to avoid arguments, head-butting, and apathy is to train your children while they’re young, perhaps using a program like WriteShop Primary (or the upcoming WriteShop Junior). If they grow up with the writing process, they’ll be more likely to accept and value it, even if they never learn to love it.

Copyright 2011 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

A couple of weeks ago, I posed a question at the WriteShop Facebook page: What is YOUR favorite part of the writing process—brainstorming for ideas, writing the rough draft, or self-editing and revising? The responses were pretty evenly divided.

• Rough draft….I get to be sloppy!!!!!
• Rough draft – definitely
• A completely finished final draft!
• My favorite part is self-editing and revising.
• Brainstorming
• I like the editing and revising part, the polishing and refining. I have such a hard time with the idea of a “completely finished” final draft…. I have to work on that perfectionism and being able to say “This is good, and ‘good’ is good enough.”
• I love the creativity and freedom of the rough draft.
• Definitely the brainstorming and research! I could do it for weeks!

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a lot like spilling out a box of puzzle pieces, finding the edges, and hunting for a few particular colors and shapes. All the parts are there, and you’re working on the framework and key elements, but the main picture is still a big blank.

Those who favor the brainstorming stage love watching an idea begin to emerge. They find joy in the initial bursts of inspiration and creativity, knowing they can sort and organize later.

During brainstorming, you toss out ideas—all kinds of ideas! Some will end up sticking while others will fall by the wayside. Ample brainstorming helps reduce writer’s block by giving you something to say when it’s time to write.

Rough Draft

Writing a rough draft reminds me of shaping a vessel out of clay. You have a sense of what you want to make, and now you’re going to jump in and start creating.

The rough draft is the favorite of those who enjoy watching their story or essay begin to unfold. They love getting started. They love the imperfection. They love playing with ideas and watching them take shape. And they love knowing their best work is yet to come!

This is the time to begin herding those random brainstorming ideas into formation. I like to call the first draft a “sloppy copy” because it gives the writer permission not to be perfect the first time.

Karen emailed me to share how this revolutionized their homeschool writing:

My son hates writing assignments … because he puts so much pressure on himself to be perfect. The phrase “sloppy copy” instead of “first draft” is the breakthrough we’ve been needing. In his mind the assignment is now to make a sloppy copy; therefore he HAS to include errors or he would not be fulfilling the assignment.

Self-Editing and Revising

Once the ideas have begun to form on paper, the tweaking begins. The writer replaces dull or repeated words and ideas, reduces clutter, cuts off rabbit trails, and focuses on polishing the writing.

Like a stream, writing is a fluid entity. Replacing a word, altering a phrase, moving a sentence—these are like adding rocks or removing log jams to redirect the flow of the stream. With even the simplest, most subtle movement, a writer has the ability to alter the direction of the composition. It’s a powerful, beautiful thing.

Editing and revising happen to be my favorite part of the writing process. I just love watching my early ideas find their groove!

What’s your favorite part of writing?

When you set a sheet of blank paper before your child and tell him to write, you might as well toss him into the absolute blackness of a yawning cavern without rope or flashlight and have him find his way out. Either way, he faces a slew of unknowns, and without the right tools to assist him, he’ll be lost.

Just as a spelunker, or caver, uses specific equipment to help him safely explore a cave, every student needs writing tools to help him feel more confident and successful.

So, how are writers like spelunkers? You’ll be surprised at the similarities!

They Need Clear Boundaries

Unless you’re on a tour, there are no handrails or paved walkways in a cave. A first-time cave explorer facing the unknowns of a dark cavern usually has no idea how to start, which direction to take, or how to get back at the end of the day.

That’s why novice cavers go with an experienced guide who can give direction and establish boundaries. When the boundaries are clear, the caver won’t worry about things like winding up in an endless passageway or falling into an underground stream. He also won’t huddle fearfully against a damp wall, paralyzed by the dark, unknown surroundings. Boundaries provide safety to explore.

Writers need boundaries too. It’s pretty intimidating to most kids to face a blank page and have absolutely no idea what they’re supposed to put on it. Students who lack skills and tools either hover anxiously over the page, unable to write at all, or they write in a disorganized, sidetracked manner.

To help your child feel more confident and secure, establish boundaries using some of these ideas:

• Define the nature and purpose of the writing assignment, such as describe a food, explain a process, tell a personal story, or compare and contrast two novels.
• Give specific requirements for length, such as number of words, paragraphs, or pages.
• Provide topic options with the framework of the assignment. For instance, if the student must describe a food, give her several choices from which to pick, or let her come up with her own. When she’s interested in the subject matter and has a say in the topic, her confidence rises.
• Give clear instructions so the student knows exactly what’s expected.

They Need Supervision, Structure, and a Plan

To practice caving safety, novice cavers need a leader with experience to oversee the expedition. He has a plan, makes sure everyone follows directions, and is responsible for bringing his group of explorers back on time.

Students also need an overseer—a parent or teacher—to ensure their writing success. Even if you establish boundaries for the assignment, your child can still get lost, delayed, or overwhelmed without direct supervision. 

• Break the assignment into parts to ward off procrastination, dread, and hyperventilation. Just as a caver wears a head lamp to help light the way, your student needs to know where he’s going with his writing assignment too. Illuminate his path by showing him the steps of the writing process. They include prewriting, brainstorming, writing, editing, and revising.
• Give a deadline for the finished piece—and stick to it.
• Create a schedule or plan to promote timeliness. Ask your student to turn in each part of the writing assignment on its proper due date along the bigger timeline.
• Monitor progress. Supervision and follow-through are key to his success. If you don’t check your child’s work each step of the way, you may impede his progress. He’s waiting for your OK before he moves on to the next part of the assignment; failing to follow up with him only encourages procrastination.

They Need the Right Equipment

Unlike a newbie, a seasoned caver would never dream of entering a cave with nothing but the clothes on his back and a pocket flashlight from the Dollar Tree. He knows that as he meets various obstacles during his adventure, the right equipment will serve him well: proper clothing, a good helmet, a helmet-mounted light, spare batteries and bulbs, food and water, and basic survival supplies.

On the other hand, novice writers think nothing of approaching a cavernous writing assignment equipped with nothing but pen and paper, when in truth, they need a well-stocked chest of writing tools.

It may take some time to fill that toolbox, but eventually they’ll have a wide assortment of proper tools to help them write with confidence and skill.

• Graphic organizers and brainstorming worksheets for planning and sorting ideas
• Stylistic tools, such as transition words to connect ideas and paragraphs and sentence variations to add interest to the writing
• A good thesaurus to help them choose strong, accurate words.
• Checklists or rubrics that remind them what to look for when proofreading and self-editing.

They Need to Develop Their Skills 

Much of what a person learns about cave exploration comes through . . . cave exploration! He can study caving techniques day and night, but until he enters his first cave and starts scrambling over rocks, traversing ledges, and crawling through narrow passageways, all the book learning in the world won’t make much sense.

Writers also learn by doing. As they discover new techniques and skills and put them into practice, they’ll gain confidence in their ability to write—and they’ll show noticeable improvement. Here are five important skills your writers will need to develop:

• Teachability. They must be willing to take instruction and receive feedback.
• Observation. Excellent writing samples and parent or teacher modeling can provide positive examples for students to follow.
• Concreteness. Students need to avoid dull, vague writing by learning to choose strong, vivid words.
• Conciseness. They also need to learn the art of using fewer words to make their point.
• Practice with different kinds of writing. Finally, they need a variety of writing lessons so they can learn to describe, inform, persuade, argue, write poetry, tell stories, etc.

Simple tips and tools like these can set your student on the path toward success. And when you provide your child with boundaries, guidance, writing tools, and useful skills, he’ll be better equipped to conquer that once-terrifying abyss of a blank page.

Copyright 2010 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.