I’m teaching some writing with my squirrelly 9th graders, and they can’t seem to get the idea of skipping part that they aren’t sure about yet. I tried to explain to them that writing an essay is not so much like running a race where you start at the beginning and end at the end, but it’s more like putting together a puzzle, where you look at the pieces you have and try to see what fits together, starting maybe with the outside parts – the structure – and filling it in as you go along. As you find new pieces and look at others in a different way, you begin to see the picture, and it gets easier to fill in those parts that aren’t exactly obvious or clear right away.

I gave specific instructions along these lines – like, REALLY specific: do not start with the first part of the introduction. Start with your potential thesis, then fill in some reasons, and if you need to change the thesis, do it, then begin to find evidence for your reasons, and feel free to change things that aren’t working. I know that looks complicated here, but I literally gave a checklist and a graphic organizer.

Guess how many kids immediately asked how to start the essay? …a bunch. I retaught the idea, and they grudgingly did what I was imploring them to do.

I was thinking about this because I didn’t know what to write about today. At all. I thought about it for about an hour, skimming the internet, looking for some sort of inspiration. Nothing really came to me. Which is when I remembered my kids who were struggling with skipping stuff they weren’t sure about yet.

I think I get that writer’s block (and brain block in general) better since I’ve started trying to write every day. Some days, I’m definitely NOT feeling it. Like today. And forcing myself to start sometimes goes okay, but other times, I feel like nothing I write is worthwhile. I think that’s okay too, because, like I’ve said before, if I don’t write every day, I won’t bother to pick it up when I do feel like I have something I need to write about. In the past, I’ve thought about things, but never bothered putting them down in words because it takes work and why bother? Now that I’m writing every day, when something is on my mind that I want to explore, I do it because I have the time and space already set aside.

So I’ve shown kids you can skip some line or put in some sort of placeholder that tells you what you THINK you MIGHT want to put in there, so that the space is there when you are ready to come back to it. These blogs I write when I don’t have any plan (that sometimes are uninspired and forced) are sort of like my placeholders: they take the space and time that I need to make sure is there so that, later, I will be able to get ideas out that matter.

Writing has made me a better teacher. I’m more empathetic in some ways, and my teaching and advice is more authentic because I’m doing what I ask them to do every day.