English 1A
Pepper
Spring 04
Pre-Writing Strategies
Focused Freewrite: Choose a time limit between five to ten minutes. Take your general topic
(this could be a single word or short phrase) and write on it non-stop for the entire time. Do not
lift the pen from the paper or stop writing. If you can’t think of anything to write, literally write
“I can’t think” over and over. You will get so bored, your mind will force itself to think of
something. Do not censor yourself during this process. Even if what you’re writing sounds silly,
keep writing. Do not go back and read what you wrote during the freewrite. At this point you
are merely exploring a topic. You can’t go wrong.
Trait Questionnaire: This exercise can easily draw from a previous focused freewrite. Choose
three to five traits about the topic you are exploring. Try to answer the following questions about
each trait individually: who, what, when, where, why, and how. Depending on the trait, some
questions will have a simple answer, and some of the questions won’t even make sense to
answer. Usually you will find one or two of the questions apply exceedingly well to the trait,
and these are the ones you will want to focus the most time on. Remember, you are in the
process of starting to narrow down your general topic and find a subject to write a whole essay
on.
Mindmappping: (who comes up with these titles?) Mindmapping is a more visual
representation of your mind’s thinking process. From your trait questionnaire, find the idea that
seemed the most interesting to you or the idea that you seemed to have the most to say about.
Write that word or short phrase in the center of a large piece of paper and draw a circle around it.
Now, proceed to write more phrases in circles clustering around the center idea. The new circles
should ideally connect to the main idea or answer a question (usually “how?”) and you should
drawn connecting lines to represent this. When you have five to seven ideas clustered around the
center, try to find a connection between them and draw a circular line between those ones. Feel
free to eliminate ideas that don’t connect. As fascinating as they might be, they just might be
needless filler in your essay. Fill in more circled phrases to make sure that each idea is clearly
connected: for example, in my example the center idea is children exposed to adult reality and
one of my clustered ideas is watching sexy commercials. You’d want to add “children watching
more TV in-between those two” to demonstrate exactly how one leads to the other.
Study your flow chart and look for a thesis statement that might encompass all the ideas you
chose to concentrate on. Remember, the best thesis statement will suggest the direction of your
argument and suggest all the elements of your topic without being either too specific or too
vague.