25 Journal Topics (4)

Writing a journal can be a great way to record your life, practice writing skills, and build materials for other writing projects. Here are some ideas for topics to write about rather than just chronicling what happened on a given day.

1.    Have you ever been victim of a crime? What happened? How did you feel? How did you recover?

1. What is your opinion about the legal system in the USA? On what is your opinion based?

2. How important are politics in your life? Why? What are your political beliefs?

3. How do you feel about nature? Is there a spot in nature that is particularly important to you? Describe it in detail. How do you feel when there?

4. What is your favorite book? Why? What significant lessons do you feel this book imparts?

5. How did you learn to read? Does reading play an important role in your life? How?

6. When you were a child, what did you want to be as an adult? Why? How have your goals changed or stayed the same?

7. If you could do anything, what would it be? Why?

8. Describe a typical day for you with as much detail as possible. When you read over what you have written, how do you feel about it?

9. What was your first romantic encounter? Use your five senses to describe it in detail. How did you feel?

10. What is love? Tell a story that illustrates what you mean.

11. If you had to plan the perfect date, what would it involve?

12. What famous person do you admire? Why?

13. If you were famous, what would it be for? What would you do with your fame?

14. What television show best matches your life? Why?

15. If you had to make a show or book about your life, what would it be called? What would the premise be? Who would be the main characters?

16. How much responsibility should parents take for their children’s lives? Tell a story which illustrates what you mean.

17. Do you consider yourself to be guided more by emotion or logic? Tell a story that shows what you mean.

18. Do you think most people are guided more by emotion or logic? What evidence do you have for your opinion?

19. Describe your favorite item of clothing. Is it a favorite because of how it feels, how it looks or because of an event you wore it to? What do you think the item of clothing shows about you?

20. Do you believe that everything happens for a reason or that things just happen and people create the reason after the fact? On what do you base your opinion?

21. Is it possible to balance work and family life? How? If not, which would take priority? Why?

22. How do you feel about money? How important is money to you?

23. When you meet new people, how do you react? Tell a story to illustrate this.

24. When you are around a group of people, how do you behave? What makes you most comfortable? What makes you most uncomfortable?

25 Journal Topics (3)

Writing a journal can be a great way to record your life, practice writing skills, and build materials for other writing projects. Here are some ideas for topics to write about rather than just chronicling what happened on a given day.

1.    What is love? What is happiness? How do you achieve each?

1. What obligations do individuals have to others and to their communities and the world?

2. If you could travel anywhere in the world where would you go and why?

3. What trips have you taken? Use your five senses to describe important things that you saw or experienced on your trip?

4. Is traveling to other places important? What can be gained?

5. How would you describe your childhood? What are some important events that you feel shaped your childhood?

6. Describe an event that you feel changed a core belief. What happened? Why did it change your belief?

7. How do you spend your time? What would you say takes up most of your time?

8. Do you feel that the way you spend your time reflects your values? Why or why not?

9. What is your view of technology? How do you use technology in your everyday life?

10. Describe your mother—both in terms of physical appearance and personality. What role has she played in your life?

11. Tell a story about a specific event in your life that involves your mother.

12. Describe your father—both in terms of physical appearance and personality. What role has she played in your life?

13. Tell a story about a specific event in your life that involves your father.

14. What qualities do you think make a good friend?

15. If your friends described you, what would they say?

16. Which of your qualities or characteristics do you think is most salient? Why?

17. What makes you most angry? Why? How do you deal with the anger?

18. What makes you most sad? Why? How do you deal with the sadness?

19. Do you prefer urban, suburban or rural living? Why?

20. Have you ever experienced the death of a loved one? What happened? How did you deal with your grief?

21. Do you consider yourself healthy? What do you do to maintain your health?

22. Do you participate in a sport? Why? Describe an important event related to your sport?

23. What hobbies do you have? What does each entail? Why do you enjoy each particular hobby? Tell a story about something you did related to your hobby.

24. How important are appearances to you? Tell a story about a time when appearances were very important or not important at all.

3 Tips for Writing Your College Application Essay

Even in the era of technology, each year prospective students anxiously await the mail to see if they got the thin envelope or the thick one, the rejection or acceptance letter. The one they get is determined largely by their application essay. Writing college application essays is a daunting task for many students. That’s why it’s a good idea to start planning well in advance, and to write some practice essays.

One of the main challenges is that in the essay, a student must engage in self-promotion, which is counter to our cultural admonition against bragging. Also, students are often unsure about what will work–what admissions officers are looking for. There is a lot of advice available, but I would like to focus on three key strategies: creating a match, telling a story, and demonstrating excellence.

Creating a Match

Most colleges are looking for students who fit with their culture, mission, and academic standards. For instance, a college that focuses on majors in technology, like MIT, will look for students with strong math and science backgrounds and the drive to enter a competitive field in engineering, etc. This helps ensure a better experience for students and better retention rates for the college.

If you can show that you are a good match for the college, you stand a better chance of getting accepted. Do your research. Get copies of the course catalog, student handbook and other publications. Go on the website and read the descriptions of campus life and the promotional materials. Chances are, you’ll see a few key messages repeated all over these documents. In your essay, use the phrases and ideas the college uses to promote itself. Give examples to show how you fit these key characteristics.

Telling a Story

Admissions staff read thousands of applications. They are looking for the ones from students who will likely excel at their institution. They want to be interested in what they read. In short, they must feel like they know something about you. You can really show them who you are by telling an engaging story about yourself, a story that demonstrates your skills, personal philosophy or insights, and your determination to succeed.

Good stories invite the reader into an experience. As you write your story, make sure you include details that bring your story to life. Imagine you are telling the story to a trusted mentor and include information about how you felt and what you learned from your experience. You may tell one longer story to illustrate your point in an essay, or you might want to include several short examples of your experiences to show what kind of person you are. Make sure you meet the requirements of the application, though.

Demonstrating Excellence

The content of what you write in your essay should show you as a person who has strong skills in an area relevant to the college you are applying to. It should show that your past successes are an indication of your future success throughout your education and career. All of this will show you are a person who strives for excellence.

The way you write your essay will also show your excellence as a student and your attention to detail. Make sure you address the question asked in the application. Use excellent language, express ideas clearly, and show your own voice and style. Be absolutely sure the grammar is correct.

Writing the essay can be scary because so much seems to ride on it. You can make the process easier and write a better essay by starting early and spending your time crafting an essay that truly reflects your abilities

How Do Most Students Write Papers?

Based on my experience working one-on-one with student writers, I would say that most students plunge into writing without really thinking about what they are doing. In the almost twenty years I taught writing, I saw students use the same strategies, year after year, even when they knew they were ineffective. Here’s a typical pattern that most student writers—and many adults who write for professional or personal necessity—follow:

1. Make a cursory list or map of ideas to be covered in a paper.

2. Stare at blank screen until a great opening line pops into mind.

3. Explore ideas about the topic by writing an introduction that lists general statements about the topic.

4. Take ideas from the list or map generated earlier and write a paragraph about each one by stating the idea and then repeating it or explaining it in different words, sometimes using quotes from other sources if required.

5. Write a conclusion that restates some of the ideas from the introduction in similar—but not identical—sentences.

6. Use spellcheck and grammar check to make any corrections that are indicated.

Students use this default writing strategy even when they can describe the writing process and when they say they are following it. The job of the teacher is in this scenario to find the mistakes and spots where the writing is unclear and grade the paper accordingly. And the default writing strategy will yield a paper—one similar to most of the other papers that other students write. It does not, however, encourage deeper knowledge about a topic or use critical thinking skills.

See “A Conscious Strategy for Writing” to learn about an alternative approach.

Why Is the Five Paragraph Theme a Problem?

Almost every high school student learns to write the Five-Paragraph Theme. Its basic structure asks students to write

• a one-paragraph introduction with a thesis that highlights three points

• three body paragraphs, each elaborating on the points listed in the thesis

• a conclusion paragraph that restates the thesis.

The problem is that most college professors hate the Five-Paragraph Theme. Here’s a story that illustrates why. I had a student come to me for a conference to plan her 10-page research paper. We discussed her topic and came up with about six ideas that she needed to research. She developed an insightful and sophisticated thesis. I felt we had done good work. As she left, she asked “How am I going to fit all of this in five paragraphs?”

Of course, there was no way she could meet all the requirements of the assignment in five paragraphs, but that model was so ingrained that she couldn’t think outside it.

The Five-Paragraph Theme offers an easy model for teaching and learning about writing. It can even be a good starting point—however, it is totally inadequate for longer and more sophisticated writing. Students need to learn it as a starting point for writing and then build on the paragraphs to expand their thinking and development of ideas.

Given the workload of many high school teachers, it’s easy to understand why the Five-Paragraph Theme is popular. A teacher who has 100 students throughout the day would have to grade 1000 pages each time a 10-page paper is assigned. Five paragraphs generally take up only one and a half to two pages. An even better reason is that it’s easy to teach—five paragraphs with a clear structure and content makes an easy to describe and define assignment. Also, it’s easy for students who are often frustrated by the abstract and varied guidelines of writing.

The trick, which the best teachers know, is to teach the Five-Paragraph Theme as a starting point and then teach students how to build it up to meet the more sophisticated demands of college and professional writing.

Why Is the Transition to College So Difficult?

“I got A’s on all of my high school writing assignments, but now I feel like I don’t even know what I’m doing.” I’ve heard this lament or a variation on it for many years in my college writing classes. The transition from high school to college can be daunting for many reasons (being away from home, adjusting to new levels of responsibility, feeling anxious or insecure, getting lost on the way to classes), but the most difficult are the increased expectations for writing.

Writing is one of the key determinants of success in college because so much of graded material is in the form of writing, even in classes like accounting or biology, where students expect to dodge writing assignments altogether. Most traditionally designed college courses base grades on one or two papers each semester, along with a mid-semester exam and a final exam—and many of the questions on exams are short essay questions.

The sheer volume of writing can be scary, and most students lack the time management and planning skills to juggle numerous writing assignments in different classes. Additionally, the level of critical thinking expected by college professors is beyond that faced by most students in high school.

From the beginning, though, reading probably poses the most overwhelming demand for most new college students. Many students are surprised to turn up on the first day of a college class and learn that they were already expected to read the first chapter or two of their new textbooks—they start off behind and struggle to catch up. It isn’t unusual for students to have to read textbook chapters along with supplemental texts, as well. Plus, if students must do research papers, they must read the sources for those—often several articles and chapters or entire books.

If you read this and think the demands appear impossible, then you should also know that students spend significantly less time doing work in college than they did twenty years ago. And students twenty years ago did significantly less work than the students who preceded them by twenty years. When I was an undergraduate, I was told to expect about 4 or 5 hours of work for every hour spent in class. I could only expect about 2 hours for every hour spent in class from my students—and many of them did less than that.

It seems possible that we should just lower our expectations and give less work, rather than have students always feel like they are falling short. On the other hand, when the U.S. is facing dismal results on international educational studies, there might be another way to go—we could prepare high schoolers to manage the workload necessary for in-depth learning and success in college.

What Should High School Students Write to Prepare for College?

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that 44% of college professors feel that their students are not prepared for college writing. My experience with colleagues is that 100% of them feel that some percentage of their students are not prepared for the challenges of writing in college and that the work they hand in is below standards. That seems like a pretty dire problem. I also know from experience that most high school English teachers are doing everything they know how to prepare their students. 

It also seems that it could be the luck of which schools and which teachers within those schools students end up with. For instance, my son is a junior in high school and has never been assigned a paper longer than three pages. My daughter, on the other hand, is in 9th grade, and she has just been assigned a twelve-page paper. Of course, she isn’t happy about this, but I’m relieved that at least one of my children has an opportunity to do the kind of work that will help her when she transitions into college. It’s not just the length of the paper that matters, though.

Here are some elements that make a good writing assignment:

Length: Length for its own sake is not enough. Students do need to have an opportunity to explore a topic in depth and to have to explore more than two or three ideas related to a topic.

Subject: Students should be able to write about topics that interest them. They should also be able to investigate new topics in order to build interest in new topics. Not only should they write about materials related to literature, as in most Language Arts classes. They should be writing in other content classes about science and history. Because writing on a subject creates expertise, students should be writing at length in all classes.

Research: Students should be charged with researching topics using academically valid sources. They should learn how to evaluate the credibility of various sources and they should become familiar with experts in the fields they are writing about. Students should be asked to synthesize related ideas from varied sources and to draw some of their own conclusions.

Citation: Students should learn when it is appropriate to quote or paraphrase information. They should learn how to attribute ideas and words to their original sources. Finally, they should understand what plagiarism is and why it is problematic. 

Of course, this is just a brief highlight of four of the major issues that students should experience in high school to prepare them for college. But these are challenges that many students don’t face until they get to college, when the expectations can be a surprise and a source of anxiety. The opportunity to learn and practice writing in high school where they can receive guidance in these key areas could save many students from being overwhelmed in college.

Writing Thank You Cards

Fewer and fewer occasions seem to require hand-written cards, the ones where you actually write in the content instead of signing on to the sentiments already contained in the card. Graduation is one of those, and writing thank you cards for graduation can be one of the many acts that signal a transition to adult responsibility.

As a recent graduate, you are coming from a series of events that are all about you, and thank you cards are an abrupt reminder that whatever you accomplished and what you do in the future really does involve others. Writing focused on others can be a challenge in any situation, but with gifts coming from distant relatives and parents’ friends, the call to write for others can be awkward. The same situation will arise when you write thank you letters after job interviews, so this is good practice.

The first step is writing something personal. This can be simple: I’m so glad you were able to come to my graduation party and celebrate with our family. It can also be more involved: My parents have told stories about growing up with you, so I was very excited to be able to meet you in person. I know they were happy to see you, too.

The second step is the actual thank you. Particularly with gifts of money, this can feel awkward. The simplest solution is to say thank you for the money and tell what it will be used for, as in: Thank you for the gift of money. It will really help me to pay for books my first semester in college. For a gift item, expressing gratitude can be general: Thank you for the storage center. As always, more specific writing is better, though: Thank you for the storage center. I will definitely need to stay organized in college, and this will help. Personal gifts call for a more intimate sounding thank you: Thank you so much for the beautiful gold pendant. It will be a constant reminder to me of your generosity and support as I pursue my dreams.

Even though thank you cards are relatively small, the task of filling them can be daunting. After the personal greeting and the thank you, if there is room, you can fill in with the type of newsy detail that any letter would contain. If you write really big, though, you might manage to fill the card with the basics and a signature. Either way, expressing your appreciation and building personal relationships should be the goal.

My Daughter Hates Algebra

Usually I think I have it pretty easy. My kids do their homework, get good grades, and are responsible. Having worked with students and taught college classes for years, I feel equipped to help them with homework when they need it. But this year, my daughter has an Algebra 2 class, which she hates. As a result, she struggles with learning concepts and doing homework—and her difficulty is exacerbated by the fact that her teacher basically refuses to explain material in class. Each night as she works through assignments, I sit by her, trying to explain materials (it was different when I was in school, she reminds me) and offer encouragement. Inevitably, she asks why she should even bother with Algebra 2, as her career plans will not involve math.

I must admit that although I was a strong student in math, I have used algebra exactly three times since I left school: when I worked in a tutoring center if the math tutor didn’t show up and I didn’t have too many writing students, I would help students with their algebra homework; when my son was in high school, I would answer questions in algebra if he had them; and now I once again call on my knowledge of algebra to help my daughter. So, answering her question about the value of learning something she is unlikely to need is a challenge for me.

Of course, I get the same questions from students in my college courses and workshops. They say they will never write in their careers, so learning to write is a waste of time. Based on my experience with professionals in a wide range of careers, I know this isn’t exactly true. There are a few careers that don’t require writing, but for professionals who want to advance to higher levels of management and success, writing is vital, whether they are in the medical field, finance, technology, science, or the service industry.

Even more important, though, is the fact that learning to write shapes the way people think, and it can have enormous impact on critical thinking and decision-making skills. Writing creates analytical skills when writers break down the many aspects of their topics, see how they function separately and together, and look for patterns and gaps. Writing develops the ability to synthesize information when writers gather materials from multiple sources and perspectives and draw conclusions. Writing enhances the ability to understand an audience of others and how they will think and react to information. Whether or not a student ever writes a single email or report, these vital skills will help them understand our political, economic and interpersonal worlds and make better decisions and better lives.

Is the same true of math? Of course, math requires close attention to details and adherence to established principals and procedures. It enhances an understanding of our physical world and the relationships among factors. Doing a math problem forces a student to slow down and focus on each element and its relationship to others. These are all vital skills; it just remains for me to convince my daughter of this in the same way I have to prove the value of writing to my college students.

What is an A?

I just went to a performance of the symphony. The symphony in our city is very good—they have played at Carnegie Hall in New York and have even been nominated for a Grammy. Of course, the concert was great. People around here are generous with their praise; at this, as at almost every performance I have seen, they gave a standing ovation.

Now, I love music, and I think that the talent that goes into any production of music is wonderful and mysterious. This is especially true because my musical ability reaches just about to the level of a three-year-old sitting on the kitchen floor, banging pots and pans with a spatula and singing, "Da Da da Da Da."

Still, I am a reluctant participant in standing ovations. It's not because I am too lazy to stand up after sitting in a darkened theater for hours. (I even heard the woman next to me say, "We have to stand up to leave anyway, so we might as well.") I just can't shake the belief that standing ovations are not for merely wonderful performances. They are for performances so magnificent that they blow your mind and reach down into your soul and pull it out onto the stage. I've been to those kinds of performances—whether in music, theater or dance—and they are life-changing experiences.

The same principle applies for me with student papers. An A paper is a paper that stands above all the others. An A reflects excellent use of language and expression, innovative ideas, and engaging, well-organized support. The paper doesn't have to have perfect grammar (though that is an ideal to strive for) or flawless discussion. Usually, the insight, details and expression are so good that I'm willing to overlook minor flaws. Such papers are rare, but grading one is like unwrapping a gift.

The rarity is a problem because every teacher wants to reward students with good grades—especially when students work hard and strive for more than they actually achieve. We live in a society of the participation award, and sometimes students think good grades are a birthright. I have succumbed to the temptation to reward merely good papers with an A, even if they don't reach the highest level. I'm afraid that makes the true A's less distinctive, but if students feel the best is unattainable, they stop trying—and sometimes getting a good grade will change a student's attitude toward writing. I also feel the pressure to make students happy—because I like them, because I empathize with their struggles, because I want to be liked and to have students like my classes. Plus, grading writing assignments is subjective, so it seems like each semester I come up with a different approach to this dilemma: one time I will uphold the absolute and the next I will be a little more flexible. While in theory, I am very clear about what makes a grade, in practice I am more ambivalent. I believe that other writing teachers face the same choices, and I would love to know how others resolve it.

What Is a Writing Workshop?

The worst thing about writing is the doubt, the questioning, the constant struggle of wondering if there is a way to do it better. A writer working in isolation must deal with those issues alone. That is what makes a writing workshop so wonderful. It’s an opportunity to build key skills—yes, there’s a way to do some things better, and at a workshop you can try it out. Sometimes you just need to practice, and the writing workshop offers the opportunity for targeted practice of skills you already have, but which improve with experience. It’s also an opportunity to interact and share experience, ideas, and feedback with other people who face the same struggles as you do.

So, what is a writing workshop? It’s a meeting of a group of eight to ten writers who share similar concerns or writing demands. The workshop is led by a facilitator who gives mini-lectures or presentations of key skills. The presentations are followed by concentrated activities to practice those skills. Often you practice skills you already have, or think you have. But when you get into the activities, you should find that you are looking at the task in a new way, you are building your skills on a higher level, or you are honing. The key to better writing is the triad: practice, feedback, revision. A workshop gives the opportunity for all three.

After the concentrated writing exercises, the workshop group engages in discussion. Usually different members of the group will read the material produced from the activity. Then the group, led by the facilitator will break it down, discuss what works, how new skills can be applied, and focus on improving the writing even further.

Ideally in a workshop, students will work independently. They will take away skills to practice on their own. The workshop is designed to give foundational work which participants expand on. Many times, skills covered in the workshop, especially if the participant isn’t entirely ready for the skill yet, will blossom later as the participant continues to work independently to practice and enhance skills.

The goal is to build targeted skills, lay a foundation for future independent growth, and foster creativity and engagement in writing. This is very different from the goals and the procedures in a classroom, and may be challenging at first. The long-term gains are well worth it, though.

The Adventures of Writing

Usually when we travel, my husband Dave and I (and now our kids) have only a vague idea of where we are going. We book a place to sleep the first night in a country, rent a car and drive in the direction of something we want to see.

It is this philosophy of travel that has landed us at an unheated Chinese restaurant somewhere in the middle of Ireland on Good Friday (it was the only open place for over 100 miles and the temperature outside was about 45 degrees). It has also sent us on an exciting whitewater rafting trip on a Level 5 river in Costa Rica right after a rainstorm that diverted the river through sugar cane fields and over a path that even our guide was surprised by. And it has led us to the rooftop bar of a beautiful hotel in Sorrento, Italy, sipping Compari, overlooking the Bay of Naples and swaying to the music of a swing band. We have cross country skied through a blizzard in Canada and driven an hour out of our way to see a “castle” in England—or so the signs said—that ended up being little more than four cornerstones and some rubble.

These unexpected adventures are sometimes scary, sometimes mundane, sometimes magnificent, but always memorable. We come back from our vacations with stories to tell—often stories that scare anybody else off from wanting to travel with us. We don’t mind. Our adventures make life exciting and interesting. As I like to tell my children, “Always be the person playing in the waves, instead of the person sitting on the beach.”

Writing can be like this. You follow the path of your words to unexpected places. The ideas lead, and you aren’t always sure where you are going. You might end up on a wild ride, which is a little scary because of the uncertainty, but it is usually exciting. New ideas and perspectives emerge out of the words because you leave yourself open to following without a plan. You can play in the waves of your words and create something enchanting and entertaining.

Of course, when you write like this, you have to go back over your words and make them clear, interesting, and detailed. The stories we tell of our travels have been refined and organized into engaging tales because we have elaborated on the details. We have peopled them with characters, like the older woman who insisted that she should be the lead on the raft in spite of the guide’s attempt to recruit someone younger and stronger; the crew in the pub in Dover who went from raucous cheer to complete silence at the sight of a woman (that would be me) walking through the door; and the man at the foot of Mount Vesuvius who passed out walking sticks and gave us free lava rocks because he was impressed that I tried to speak Italian, however poorly. When we tell our stories, we try to make a point, pass on some lesson, and leave a lasting impression. The same things make for good writing.

Breaking Writer’s Block

You sit at our desk with the blank white page of a Word document open before you. Your job? Fill the page, and then the one after that, and the one after that. It seems simple, but there are days when that task becomes so laden with doubt, fear, and apprehension that words just will not come. We call that writer’s block, and just about every writer has faced it.

Most skilled writers know that the feeling will pass and that the words will come again, even if getting them out onto the page is agonizing. Less skilled writers take this as the status quo—it will always feel impossible to write. They let a temporary state define their writing experience.

There are ways to get over writer’s block and get ideas flowing. Here are several:

• Take a break and think about something else for a while—though be careful not to let the break extend indefinitely.

• Go for a walk and think about your writing—movement will increase your brain’s productivity.

• Talk through your project with someone else.

• Read what others have done—though you must avoid the temptation to plagiarize.

• Read over your own work for inspiration.

• Write everything you can think of about your topic until something strikes you. Then take that and write about it until great ideas start flowing.

• Break the task of writing into stages and try to complete just one (such as coming up with a topic, brainstorming ideas, conducting research, writing an outline, or determining a focus or thesis).

Whatever your strategy, the most important thing is that you don’t let writer’s block stop you from enjoying the creative intellectual endeavor of writing. Once your ideas start flowing and you get into the zone of writing, there’s nothing better.

Olympics Spectator

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been watching the Olympics when I have a little free time. I absolutely loved the opening ceremony. I’ve seen the athletes’ stories unfold as the commentators tell the audience about the struggles and challenges that many athletes have overcome to make it to the Olympics. I’ve waited for the starting gun, imagining myself on the blocks—I’m sure I’d jump the gun, my impatience palpable as I try to hold back. And then I have watched the competition unfold, one human striving for excellence pitted against another human also striving for excellence.

As enticed as I have been by the spectacle, I had to take a step back and wonder: Why? I mean, clearly I have nothing real invested in who wins the gold for diving or the silver in the high jump; as they say, “I have no skin in the game.” I haven’t spent hours in training or sacrificed time with family and friends or invested my life savings in gym memberships. Yet I find myself cheering for the winner and commiserating with the underdog. I watch the movement, precision and focus and the agony and triumph on the athletes’ faces with real empathy. I love the human drama. Why is that?

After thinking about it, I decided that what the Olympics show us is the pinnacle of human achievement. With basically the same biological factors as anybody else, these Olympic athletes surpass what an average person can do. They strive for the height of athletic perfection. As human beings, we are all elevated by the achievement; we share in the human moment. We see the possibilities, even if we ourselves will not reach them.

Most of us strive for excellence in some area where we feel we are endowed with talent. While it might be athletics, it can also be music or writing or needlepoint or volunteerism. For most of us, though, our area of excellence is not in the realm of world competition, television, lights, opening ceremonies, and medals. We work because we feel value in what we do and we appreciate the beauty of what we create. The intrinsic rewards and feeling of self-worth keep us working to attain higher and higher achievement in our fields. But every time we improve, every time we produce something wonderful, every time we move to the next level, we place another gold coin in the treasure chest of human accomplishment.

I feel the same triumph for an accomplished writer when I read his or her work as I do for an accomplished athlete. It’s easy to perceive humanity as bright and radiant after reading The Bean Trees, or Love Medicine or The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. When I read a student’s paper that shows real insight and knowledge, my faith in humanity is renewed. When I see members of my writers’ group pursuing the perfect sentence or the clear expression of a concept, I know the world is a good place. It helps me overcome my impatience with humanity.

Here’s to trying to be better and better still!

Procrastinator’s Delight

Every time a student tells me that he or she waited to the last minute to complete an assignment, I know I’m supposed to say that it’s much better to plan and allocate enough time to do a really good job. While I often give this de rigueur response, in the back of my mind is the nagging reminder that I, too, am a procrastinator. Like my students today, I used to justify my procrastination by saying that I worked better under pressure. That last-minute adrenaline rush fueled my creativity and forced me to really work.

The truth is, though, that even if I managed to get good grades with my last-minute efforts, I realized as I matured that I could have done better with more time. When I got my papers back, I would see glaring errors, which I missed in my haste. Even if these errors seemed relatively small and had little effect on my final grade, I realize now that I could have learned so much more if I had taken a more balanced approached.

Procrastination is motivated by different reasons, and exploring those can help reform a procrastinator. Here are a few reasons why people procrastinate:

• They are uncertain about the project.

• The project is distasteful.

• The project is overwhelming.

• They need materials.

• They need support from others.

• Too many other demands take precedent (or are used as an excuse to put off the project).

Uncertainty: I still think there may be some value to procrastinating, as long as it doesn’t last right up to or past the deadline. When a project involves a lot of uncertainty, the time spent procrastinating can be used to investigate other similar projects, talk with people who may be able to give more information, conduct research, and consider different possibilities.

Distasteful: Of course, we all dream of unloading our distasteful tasks onto a willing and unsuspecting victim. In college, though, having someone else do the work is called cheating. A lot of times, the task isn’t as bad as you expect, and the anticipation and anxiety about what it involves and what will happen if the task isn’t completed are much worse than the task itself. Doing the initial and least distasteful steps can make the task more manageable. Otherwise, you just have to suck it up and plow through.

Overwhelming: If a project is so large or the results are so important that you become overwhelmed just thinking about it, putting it off seems really appealing. The problem is, that large tasks are the ones where the penalties of procrastinating are the worst. If you put it off too long, it becomes impossible to even attempt. The best strategy is to break the project up into smaller tasks. I like to create a table with three columns (Task, Resources Needed, Completion Date) and work out each small step that will contribute to the final product.

Materials: Sometimes having to gather materials is time consuming and makes the project feel bigger than it really is. Sometimes materials are expensive. There are times when the materials needed are not accessible for some reason. Coming up with a strategy to find materials may be the progress you can make. Go to the library, consult with others, join a Freecycle group, ask for recommendations from your professor. Take that first step, and then the next steps might be easier.

Support from Others: Working with others can have two major pitfalls: you might feel uncomfortable about asking for help or people don’t always follow up and get back to you with the resources you need. Try to consider this an opportunity to build networking and people skills. Rehearse conversations and carefully craft emails that you can use to ask for the resources you need. Follow up with polite reminders when others are not carrying through with their tasks.

Competing Demands: Admit it: sometimes being busy is just an excuse to avoid doing a project you really don’t want to do. Sometimes, of course, we all get too busy. The best way to do this is to write a to-do list that prioritizes tasks based on importance and nearness of deadline. Then allocate an hour or two each day to take care of high priority tasks.

Well, knowing what to do to overcome procrastination and actually doing it are two different things. If you’re like me, you’ll be tempted to say, “Someday I’ll put my plan into action,” knowing well that I’m in no hurry to arrive at someday. I still procrastinate, but when I manage to follow my own advice, I avoid a lot of stress and anxiety—and I end up proud of my work.

A Conscious Strategy for Writing

On my last blog, I described the default strategy that students use for writing papers. This time, I’ll discuss the ideal strategy that students should work on, one in which they use conscious decision-making for an effective process. This allows the writer to creatively shape the words on the page, making writing an art. Because writing can foster critical thinking and problem solving skills, the best approach to writing optimizes those skills. Generally, the writing process includes several stages.

The process looks like this:

1. Prewriting: considering all aspects of the topic and using strategies that engage students in critical thinking—like asking and answering questions, developing a thesis that reflects an argumentative stance (one that considers the significance of a topic and how it can be used by readers) and organizing ideas into an outline that reflects coherent thinking on the topic. This is the point where students gather their materials, just as an artist gathers clay and sculpting tools and paints.

2.    Drafting: using the thesis and outline to develop ideas in writing, integrating explanation and evidence; and writing well developed introduction, body and conclusion paragraphs. At this stage, the writer is molding the clay and finding out what shapes it lends itself to.

3.    Revising: paying attention to the words on the page and how they will be interpreted by readers and making changes to enhance the writer’s control over readers’ experience of the text. Here the writer will refine and reshape the draft, bringing out the beauty and harmony.

4.    Editing: using close reading to find and eliminate grammatical and sentence level errors that detract from a reader’s ability to understand the words on the page, often by knowing common errors and working to find and correct them. At this stage, the writer will put the final polish on the piece, paying attention to the tiniest detail.

Most of the professional writers I know spend a considerable amount of time prewriting. But this stage of the process is often invisible because writers review ideas and make connections in their minds. I often tell people that I wrote my dissertation for my Ph.D. while walking my dog. I would conduct research, locating the best sources by credible experts in the field and read and take extensive notes. During walks, though, I would mull over all the new information I had collected, consider what it meant and try to find patterns and connections with previous research and with my own experiences. After hours spent contemplating information, it sometimes seemed like the drafting stage took almost no work at all.

For beginning writers, though, prewriting should take place in writing. Synthesizing ideas from various sources, teasing out patterns, recognizing inconsistences—all of this is easier when the writer can see the words on the page.

The stage that writers spend the most time on is revising. In revision, the craft of writing becomes art. Drafting provides the clay, and during revision, the writer shapes that clay, applying critical thinking skills to evaluate, rethink and rearrange until a beautiful sculpture emerges.

The Difference Between Good and Excellent Writing

“She’s always there for me.” “Society should take care of children.” “It’s a good thing to be interesting.” “People should know better.” These are the types of general statements that appear frequently in student writing. In fact, I might get the same basic sentences in several different student papers. They are so generic that they can be used in many contexts—and they are essentially drab and meaningless. This type of general and vague writing shows students’ thinking to be vague and superficial.

Good writing, writing that people enjoy reading, moves away from these general statements to descriptions and words that readers can relate to because they can see what the writer means. Good writing replaces general terms like there, society, thing and people with concrete, sensual descriptions. Writers are often directed to show not tell. Here’s an example:

General Statement: Mary always helps her friends.

More specific: When her friend Barb was sick, Mary helped take care of her.

Very specific: When her friend Barb was struck with brain cancer, Mary went to her house each week to give Barb’s husband and two children a night away from their caretaking. As Barb’s condition got worse, Mary spoon-fed her pudding, the only food she could swallow, and adjusted her morphine levels. 

In the moment: Mary cradled Barb’s head in her arms as she dipped the spoon into the pudding bowl. She spooned small amounts of pudding into her friend’s mouth, trying to appear happy and hopeful despite the brain cancer that was taking Barb away from her family and friends. Each time Barb moaned, Mary felt sick with grief. All she could do was to check the morphine level and give her another dose.

A lot of student writing is made up of statements like the first two above. The very specific example shows the reader what exactly was involved in the caretaking and gives a detailed account of what happened. The final example puts the reader into the scene, able to see and feel what the narrator sees and feels—and it engages the reader’s imagination and emotions. Good writing moves back and forth along a spectrum from general to in-the-moment detail. It balances what the writer wants to say with what the reader can relate to and use. However, if writing stays at the generic level, neither reader nor writer has a chance to achieve any depth of knowledge.

What Is a Beta Reader?

If you are like many writers, you have a difficult time sharing your work. You probably wrote alone, almost secretly, until you were certain your work was ready for the world. That first act of sharing your manuscript is fraught with all kinds of emotions. Sharing with a beta reader is one way to ease into eventual publication, but choosing beta readers and directing their feedback should be done with care.

A beta reader is a reader who represents the intended audience of the book. It’s easy to figure out a beta reader for a book on education or sales, but it can be more difficult for a mystery or a zombie apocalypse manuscript. As a writer, you need to ask who is your typical reader. Your beta readers should be people who are well read in your genre and who have a basic understanding of storylines and character development. If you belong to a writers group, you may have people available to serve as beta readers You might even be able to arrange a swap, your services as a reader with another writer.

That might be the easy part. Because we all know that reading and enjoying books is not the same thing as being able to critique with useful feedback to help a writer prepare a work for submission to an agent or publisher. As a freelance editor, I have a lot of writers tell me something like, “My cousin’s husband is an English teacher, and I’m going to ask him to review my work before I write a query and send off the manuscript.”

Beta readers like this generally give writers an idea of whether their writing is interesting and engaging to read (though almost nobody will tell you directly that your writing is boring), if the story is good (again, it’s difficult for readers to tell you if it isn’t), if the characters and plot are realistic, if it makes sense, and if it is something they would like to read. You can get a more detailed and direct response if you ask specific questions, but reading and providing feedback for a manuscript is time consuming and requires some expertise, so choosing the right beta readers will make the biggest difference. You’ll want to develop questions that are specific to the manuscript you are seeking feedback on, but here are some examples of the types of questions you can ask your beta readers:

1. Does my book seem to start too slow or take a long time to get to the interesting parts? What do you think about the development of the action?

2. What do you think about how the book begins? Does it make you want to read more? Are you invested in the plot or the characters?

3. Does the writing style seem good? Is it consistent throughout the book? Are there points that seem to be in a different style that might not fit?

4. I’ve withheld some information (such as X, Y, Z), does that pique your curiosity and make you want to read more? Are there points that become confusing because it feels like information is missing?

5. Does the order of events in the story seem like the best way to present/develop this story?

6. How do you feel about the characters? Do you think they are interesting and worth reading about? What surprised you about them? What would you expect to have happen?

A beta reader is the first step in a long process of reviewing your manuscript to prepare for publication. Once you get feedback from beta readers, you should work to revise your manuscript (ten to twenty rounds of revision are not too many, so if you think your writing is ready for publication after you make the revisions suggested by the beta reader, you are probably wrong—though there are exceptions—and this is especially a concern if you are self-publishing because your work will not have gone through any vetting or editing from a publisher).

Along with beta readers, you will need editing. Developmental editors will help you with turning your draft into a finished product by looking at issues like pacing, plot development, character development, internal logical and chronological consistencies, along with issues of clarity and engagement for a reader. Line editors look specifically at the way you present your ideas—language, sentence clarity, variety, and paragraph development. If you work with a publisher you will work with one of their editors; however, it might require an editor to get your manuscript to the level that a publisher will want to take it on. Copy editors deal with issues of technical standards for formatting and grammar. In other words, they have detailed knowledge of the rules of language, grammar, and formatting. They also look for repetition, inconsistency, factual errors, and syntax errors. Proofreaders come in after the manuscript is printed for publication; this is the quality control stage of the process.

In general, you should prepare yourself for a lengthy process to move your manuscript from draft to publishable novel or book. Use your beta readers to prepare yourself for editing and revision, so you don’t end up reading your own book and wondering what you were thinking when you decided it was ready to publish.

25 Journal Topics (1)

Writing a journal can be a great way to record your life, practice writing skills, and build materials for other writing projects. Here are some ideas for topics to write about rather than just chronicling what happened on a given day.

1. Describe an important event that happened today (or this week). How do you feel about what happened? Why is the event important?

2. Look out your bedroom window for a while. What do you see? What do you think about it?

3. Choose a person you know. Describe that person—both in terms of physical appearance and personality. Why is this person important to you?

4. What is your favorite song? What is the song about? Why is it meaningful to you?

5. Choose an event you have heard or read about in the news. What happened? What is your interpretation of the event? How does it affect your life?

6. Describe your family’s holiday celebration for a holiday that is significant to you.

7. How would you define happiness? What makes you happy?

8. Choose something in your life that you see as a problem. Describe the problem and try to list possible ways to deal with it.

9. How would you describe the ideal relationship? How does one of your current relationships fit with your ideal?

10. What is your favorite activity? Describe what the activity involves. Why do you enjoy it?

11. How would you describe yourself—both in terms of physical appearance and personality? What are some things you like about yourself?

12. Describe your family of origin. What is your home life like? What are the roles and relationships of the members of your family?

13. What would you consider the most significant event of your life so far? How did the event affect the way you see yourself and your life?

14. Tell about one of your best accomplishments? Why is it important to you?

15. Do you have a favorite place? Describe the place using all five senses. Why is it special to you?

16. What do you consider to be one of your best attributes? Why?

17. Describe an event that you think shaped who you are. What exactly happened? Why was the event significant?

18. Describe a person who influenced who you have become. What is that person like? What is a typical action or behavior of this person? Why did he or she have influence over you?

19. Do you consider yourself religious? How would you describe your core religious beliefs? Where did they come from?

20. What religious or spiritual practice do you engage in regularly? What does it involve? Why is it significant to you?

21. If you had to pass on a life lesson to a younger person, what would it be? How did you learn this lesson? Why do you think it is important?

22. What is your favorite food? Why? Describe how you prepare it and what it tastes like.

23. Does your family have a tradition? What is it? What does it involve? Where did the tradition come from and why is it meaningful?

24. What do you know about your family’s history? Does your ethnicity play an important role in your family or individual life? In what ways?

25. If you had a beautiful day with nothing required of you, what would you do? Why did you choose this option over others?

Storytelling Basics: What to Withhold

Most writers know that exciting curiosity and creating tension are good ways to keep a reader interested. The twists in Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train are great examples of how authors can surprise readers, compelling them to read on—even if it means staying up all night. As a reader, once you find out the new truth revealed in the narrative, you keep thinking back, trying to find the little hints that should have clued you in.

While the strategy is often effective, it must be used carefully. If you frustrate your readers too much, especially younger readers, they will put the book down and find hundreds of other ways to occupy their time. Though every book and every author’s style is different, here are five dos and don’ts for holding back information.

1. What you withhold should be part of a major revelation.

Most of us know the iconic moment in Star Wars when Darth Vader says, “No, I am your father.” Throughout the film, new revelations about the characters and how they are tied together excite curiosity and change our perceptions about what is going to happen in the story. However, this final revelation forces the audience to rethink the nature of light and darkness in the film and compels us to the other offerings in the franchise.

2. What you withhold should not be trivial or necessary to understand the narrative as it emerges.

On the other hand, if you are writing a family drama and fail to mention that the father in a household is a step-father to some, but not all, of the children, your reader will spend time trying to figure out the family relationships and why they seem to be secret, rather than becoming immersed in the story. If the relationships are significant to the plot of the story, your reader may become confused and frustrated.

3. What you withhold should match Point of View (POV).

If you are writing in first person from the POV of a character in the story, then you can only include what that character would know and understand. If your protagonist is a fallible or naïve character, the telling of the story might include misunderstandings that are not cleared up until the character learns something or matures. Thus, your narrative unfolds as you share the new information the character gains. Even if you are writing with a third person narrator limited to the POV of one of the characters, what you can reveal will depend on what the character knows. You can create tension between what the reader knows or understands and what the character knows and understands. Mark Twain does this with the naïve narration of Huck Finn, when he describes Huck’s views on slavery, which are obviously flawed, in contrast with his actions, which show the real interpretation that Twain is trying to present.

4. What you withhold should make sense to the reader once the truth is revealed.

When the writer reveals the truth that has been withheld, the reader should have an a-ha moment—that palm slap to the forehead when the reader says, “I should have seen this coming all along. There were a few hints along the way and now it makes sense.” I don’t want to give anything away here, but my book group recently read The Last Mrs. Parrish, and our discussion revolved around when in the first half of the book we thought we should have known the twist that was coming in the second half. Further, once the truth was revealed about some of the characters, we realized that little scenes that had bothered us as readers suddenly made sense. That is a very satisfying feeling for a reader, and it happens when an author presents a scene that could have more than one interpretation. When the truth is revealed, the reader knows which interpretation is correct.

5. How long you withhold should not test the reader’s patience or go on longer than needed.

If you are saving up all your revelations until the end of the book, you might be trying your reader’s patience. Your view as a writer is different from readers’ views. Gradual revelation of new information connected to the narrative as it unfolds lets the reader have several a-ha moments—and if they are spaced well, readers won’t feel like you are gratuitously holding back information to taunt them. Like a good murder mystery, all books should provide a trail of clues that are slowly revealed to build up to a final revelation that makes your readers rethink what they know about the story, the characters, and the world you have placed them in.