4.2: Brainstorming & Prewriting

This chapter brought to you by Sybil Priebe and edited pieces of this Wikibook⁵⁴.

Why Prewrite?

Prewriting for even 5 to 20 minutes can help you establish what you already know about a paper topic, as well as aid you in discovering where you would like to go with a paper (i.e. what you want to know). Doing so can often help prevent you from committing to superficial and/or mundane responses. Prewriting can help you find strong, thoughtful, and clear answers to questions posed by either the assignment or by your consideration of it. It can reveal to you those potential areas of personal interest within the writing task: in a manner of speaking, prewriting enables you to “discover” yourself within the context of your topic. It can also help you nail down responses – to move ideas from short-term memory into long-term or written memory – so that you can get to the work of writing rather than trying to remember what it is you want to say. That is, your thinking is often more clear and better focused when engaged in actual writing. As such, prewriting can act as a tool to ward off or break through what is commonly called “writer’s block.”

Prewriting Activities:

The following are techniques that can aid in the composition process, either in coming up with ideas or in working through various obstacles along the way.

Brainstorming:

Brainstorming is one of the most effective pre-writing techniques you can use. It’s virtually painless and can be pretty fun, if you let it! Brainstorming is easy because there are NO RULES. Let your mind wander and think about things that you would like to explore more. Try to create a mental web of things you can connect to one another. Let the lightning of ideas strike you as they may. If you’d like a bit more structure in your prewriting, try one of these methods:

Listing:

Listing allows the writer to accomplish several important tasks:

• Finding a topic
• Determining whether you have enough information for a topic before proceeding
  • After narrowing down your topic, create a list with everything

EXAMPLE OF LISTING

The assignment is an essay about anything you want to learn more about; the topic I’m thinking of writing about is finding balance in college. 1.

• Balancing classes and work
• Studying better
• Distant friendships
• How do I find time to take care of myself?

Freewriting:

Similar to listing, only in this case you simply start writing in sentence form literally anything that comes to mind in context of thinking about your topic and/or assignment.

EXAMPLE OF FREEWRITING

I don't know what I want to learn. I really hate having to balance school and work right now. Hey, maybe that's something; I could research balance in people's lives and how they achieve it?

Outline:

This form of prewriting is geared more toward organization. It groups your thoughts into a definite main point and the supporting details.

EXAMPLE OF OUTLINING

• Intro: Why We Need Balance
  • Mental/Spiritual
  • Academic
  • Financial
• Obstacles to Finding Balance
  • People
  • Stress and Illness
• Who Has Found Balance?
  • Examples
• Tips on Finding Balance
  • Be Organized
  • ii. Find Routines that work for you

STUDENT EXAMPLE OF OUTLINING

In our student sample⁵⁵, the writer may start with the events of his freshman year, going all the way through to his senior year.

Paragraph 1 = Freshman:

I learned to manage my time with practice, schoolwork, and my social life.

I learned what it means to earn your status within a group atmosphere.

Paragraph 2 = Sophomore:

I learned to deal with adversity, as I was injured throughout most of the season.

I learned to ask for and rely on the help of others when I could not do things on my own.

Paragraph 3 = Junior:

I learned to truly work together to achieve team goals, as we had a very successful season.

I learned to present myself as a role model, as I gained some community notoriety.

Paragraph 4 = Senior:

I learned how to present myself as a true leader of a group, as I was elected team captain.

I learned to take pride in everything I do because it is the most rewarding.

EVENTS OF THE NARRATIVE

Paragraph 1:

My experience playing High School basketball taught me skills which will benefit me throughout the rest of my life. It all started during the fall of my freshman year at Otucan Bila National High School, when I quickly found out how important time management is. I had my schoolwork, which was fourteen credits including an extremely difficult Mathematics class. I had basketball, which included meetings and practice every day and running and lifting a couple times of week. I also had my social life, another important aspect, especially to a twelve-year-old.

Paragraph 2:

My sophomore year taught me how to deal with adversity. I broke my leg during the second game of the season against Team Angels, and I learned how something that seems devastating can be seen in a positive light. I learned that life will always have something unexpected in store but learning to deal with it makes us stronger people.

Paragraph 3:

My junior year taught me how to set goals and achieve them in a team atmosphere. Our team that year had a mission to make the playoffs, and we were not going to let anything get in our way. We really came together that year because we all had a common goal. I learned that a group can achieve wonderful things if all of the group members work together and believe in each other.

Paragraph 4:

My senior year in basketball taught me how to be a leader. I was elected team captain by my teammates, which showed me that my peers respected me and knew they could rely on me. Leadership does not come easily, however. I learned that leadership must not only be earned, but it also must be kept. I was always conscious of the way I acted and spoke, because I knew my teammates were looking to me for strength.

Conclusion:

Each year I played High School basketball taught me something not only about myself but also about the nature of the world and the people who inhabit the world. I learned how to balance my time, deal with adversity, the true meaning of teamwork, and how to be a respected leader. These skill-building activities will benefit me throughout the rest of my life.

Clustering:

Clustering is a primarily visual form of pre-writing. You start out with a central idea written in the middle of the page. You can then form main ideas which stem from the central idea. [Other forms of clustering might be called Bubble Diagrams or Venn Diagrams.]

EXAMPLE OF CLUSTERING

Assignments or Questions to Consider

(Insert ideas from students or teacher here.)

54 “Basic Writing/Print version.” Wikibooks, The Free Textbook Project. 9 Sep 2008, 16:02 UTC. 11 May 2016, 18:08 . Licensed CC-BY-SA.

55 "Rhetoric and Composition/Narration." Wikibooks, The Free Textbook Project. 2 Nov 2015, 14:59 UTC. 25 May 2016, 04:18 . Licensed CC-BY-SA.