Breaking Writing Down

My beginning writing students often get overwhelmed at the prospect of having to write an essay. They don't even know where to begin and feel intimidated by the writing process. If you break writing down into its component parts, however, it's not so intimidating. This technique can be useful for writers of all skill levels. First, you start with an idea, a core concept around which you will build your piece. Every sentence you write should promote that core concept or advance your thinking about it in some way. You need to introduce that core idea in your first sentence. Choose a word that best represents that concept and write it down. Then choose words that will give that idea legs and help it progress into complete thoughts. Build sentences and paragraphs around those thoughts. Next, develop helper ideas that will flesh out the main idea more completely, giving it more depth and clarity. Then build sentences and paragraphs around those secondary or supporting ideas. When you first write, don't worry about having the order of your thoughts perfectly organized. The idea is to just get your ideas formed and get them down in writing. Once you've explored and expressed all your thoughts about your core idea, then begin editing what you've written. You want your writing to unfold logically, like a story, with one thought building on the next one. Number your ideas in progressive sequence and arrange your paragraphs accordingly. You now have a completed first draft that you can revise and hone into a polished piece. By breaking writing down into parts and putting those parts together like a puzzle, you can take the intimidation out of the writing process and enjoy the results of well-organized, refined work.