Making the Most of a Road Trip
I recently overheard someone claim that teaching students to brainstorm is a futile exercise. “In the real world, no one actually brainstorms,” she said. “We just write.”
This statement surprised me, for it reminded me of taking a trip with little more than a vague notion of a plan (“I want to see the USA”). You can set off on your trek, but without a map, timetable, or sightseeing strategy, you’ll end up rabbit-trailing your way to your journey’s end.
While this may be fine for a bohemian, it can:
- frustrate the traveler who really wants to visit a particular landmark but can’t find the turnoff;
- annoy her for missing some must-see points of interest because she lingered too long in a mediocre little town; and
- aggravate her when she finds herself going in circles.
Worse, she could end up seeing nothing at all because she has absolutely no idea which way to go.
It’s fun to be spontaneous, but to get the most from a road trip, there’s nothing like an itinerary.
The Value of the Brainstorming Process
Like a free-spirited traveler, a writer may have a general idea of where he wants to go. He may even know a point or two he wants to make along the way. But without a sense of direction, he too will miss important details, spend unnecessary time on a trivial side note, or spin his wheels in one rut or another.
One of the most valuable pre-writing tools for launching the writing process and avoiding other pitfalls is brainstorming.
Students often struggle with knowing how to move from a general topic to a written essay because that paralyzing blank page stands in the way. Brainstorming is a problem-solving process that helps you:
- Think freely and openly about your topic.
- Put pen to paper as you write whatever ideas come to mind.
- Explore possibilities and connections between ideas.
- Let new ideas form and shape old ones.
- Start to bring order and organization to your scattered thoughts.
Most importantly, brainstorming has no wrong answers. It allows you to think through your topic without fear of criticism or perfection.
3 Steps of the Brainstorming Process
1. FREE-LISTING
Free-listing helps you develop an initial page of ideas about the topic by writing absolutely anything—key words, phrases, examples, main points, subpoints, details, illustrations—that come to mind to jog your thoughts about your subject.
This brainstorming method uses the heuristic inquiry, more commonly known as the 5 Ws (and an H)—who, what, when, where, why, how.
Once this primary list is “complete,” note which of your ideas would qualify as main points or categories and which would be better suited as supporting details or examples.
2. MIND-MAPPING
Next, filter your free-listing ideas through a semantic mind-map. A semantic mind-map is used to represent ideas, words, or thoughts that are connected to and organized around a central key word or concept. Mind-maps are designed to help create, visualize, classify, and structure ideas.
3. RE-LISTING
Finally, organize your ideas according to the groups or clusters created by the semantic mind-map. Identify the central idea (main point) of the various clusters and list supporting details beneath, and then prioritize these clusters/main points into a logical order. Re-listing results in a rough outline of your initial thoughts and ideas.
An Analogy
These three steps of the brainstorming process remind me of a coin-sorting machine.
When you start off with a jumbled pile of coins (ideas)—nickels, dimes, quarters, pennies—there’s no rhyme or reason to their scattered placement on the kitchen table. This is like your initial, disorganized attempt at free-listing.
To start putting the coins in their appropriate place, you gather them up and put them into a coin-sorting machine (semantic mind-map). The machine divides the coins (ideas) by kind, just like the bubbles of a mind-map divide your ideas by category.
Finally, watch as your coins come out of the sorting machine in rows of quarters, dimes, and nickels neatly arranged (re-list). In this way, putting your ideas through a mind-map will help you rearrange them into newly organized lists that set the priorities for your paper.
Taking the Trip
You think about the gazillion places you want to visit. You explore websites and sort through piles of travel brochures. Once you have a sense of where you’re going and what there is to see and do, you plot out a route and plan the details. Along the way you may take a detour or explore a new place, but you’ll never stray far from your original plan.
Because you took time to go through the brainstorming process, your readers will enjoy the journey with you—and will thank you for being such an excellent guide!
In the early stages of writing, brainstorming helps students narrow a topic and use graphic organizers, mindmaps, and other methods in the story- or report-planning process.
WriteShop I and II incorporate brainstorming worksheets in every lesson, helping unlock your teen’s creative ideas.
Our younger levels, WriteShop Primary and WriteShop Junior, introduce brainstorming skills in simple, creative ways to make the process fun!
