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Our Brains Are Amazing
If we let them do their work on their own schedule
Our brains are capable of miracles, if we let them work.
Each semester when I assigned their first essay, I asked my students to be honest. How many of them waited until the night before a writing assignment was due to write it?
The brave, honest students raised their hands. I would ask one, “Why?” He/She/Whatever would say, “I work best under pressure.”
That’s not true, I would tell them. If they waited until the last minute to do the assignment, they would be forcing their brains to come up with something, anything. “How would you feel if, when you sat down to write, your mother stood over you, yelling ‘Get it done! Do it! Do it now!’”?
They all agreed that would be very annoying, and they wouldn’t do a very good job.
I taught them to pick a topic and brain storm right after they got the assignment. Just write whatever they thought about the topic as fast as they could — no sentences, just words or phrases. Then put that paper away, preferably overnight. The next day, take it out and read over it. “You will start to see patterns, and ideas will start to appear.” Write rough drafts of the three body paragraphs, and again, put the paper away.
