Don't Know What to Write? Do a WriteBoom

A 30 minute activity to help students discover ideas that they could write about.

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Welcome to the Plug & Play section of Desk Notes! Every week you’ll receive an ELA/creative writing activity that I’ve had success with in my classroom.

To learn about my pedagogical design, check out Field Reports.

TLDR: A WriteBoom is a structured activity to let your mind explore different ideas and come up with one you are excited to write about.

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Not having things to write is a common experience. Here’s a solution.

The artist Or Bar-el does great work, but his final designs always come after he’s done a lot of exploration. It’s different than brainstorming. He calls it a SketchBoom. He starts with drawing something from his surroundings, which he then redraws multiple times, letting each version inspire the next, re-contextualizing the aspects of the drawing in different scenarios. Here are two examples if you’d like to see. They’ll take you to his instagram.

or_bar_el

A post shared by @or_bar_el

or_bar_el

A post shared by @or_bar_el

I’ve come up with a similar process for writing, and, giving credit where credit is due, I’m calling it a WriteBoom.

My students loved it.

The Plan

Overview:

1. Show the SketchBooms.

2. Guide students through a WriteBoom.

3. Ideas for extending the activity.

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Show the SketchBoom

Possible Scripting —

“Okay, I was doomscrolling on the internet, as one does, and I saw an artist do something really cool. I want to show it to y’all.”

Watch some of the videos. Use the ones above or different ones you select from his page. (FYI: There are some videos I wouldn’t share in a classroom setting, so, as always, make sure you screen the videos before you show them.)

Ask/Have students process:

• “Okay, what are you noticing about his process?”

• “What is cool about it?”

• “In what way was the end design similar or different from the starting sketch?”

• “What elements made it into the end design that he drew partway through?”

Ask: “What can we learn from him as we think about writing? What principles might be beneficial in our own practice?” (Check the footnote for some of my ideas.¹)

Transition: “There are a lot of good things we could implement into our writing approaches. Today, I’ve thought of one way could try some of what he does. Here’s what we’re going to do…”

Guide Students through a WriteBoom

Steps of a WriteBoom:

1. Find a random photo or video from your camera roll. Doesn’t matter what it is. Use it as inspiration to get your first sentence down. Write for 5 minutes. As soon as the timer is done, you must stop writing. Nope, you can’t even finish the sentence you’re on.

2. Once the 5 minutes are up, pick one line or word from what you wrote, and use it as a starting place for new writing.

   1. Starting place = the first line of your new writing, or just an inspiration for your new writing.

3. Start a brand new section, and write for 5 minutes. Pretend the first thing you wrote no longer exists. See where this new writing takes you.

4. Once again, when the timer stops: pick one of the lines you just wrote and use it as a diving board for new ideas. Write a new thing for only 3 minutes.

5. Now that the time is up, you have three separate chunks of writing. Read through all the sections, and then, for a final 7 minutes, write whatever you want. You’ll have an idea, I promise.

The principle behind a WriteBoom is this: by delaying the demand of “knowing what you’re going to write,” the writer allows her mind to run free with ideas. The simple act of writing almost always leads to new ideas, which leads to new writing, which leads to new ideas. So on; so forth. Exploring before committing lets an artist improve the quality of their final piece because they’ve tried options in a relaxed way.

Also, something about the hard cut-offs from the timer stopping students in their tracks, leaves them with a lot of unfinished stories/writing. They often want to go back to it. The final 7-minute writing is an opportunity for the students to write the things they were most excited by.

Explore many avenues, zoom out, then pick a path.

Note:

• I find it important to not have interruptions/discussions between each chunk of writing. Allowing students to talk with one another, or intentionally having a class discussion/break will cause the students’ mind to task switch, interrupting the flow and focus that lets ideas surface in their brain.

Ideas for Extending the Activity

Here are some ideas:

• The seven minutes of step five may not be enough time, and students may want to keep writing. Let them. ◡̈

• I like to do this activity with them and share what my brain did during the process. A little bit of a retrospective think-aloud, if you will.

Tony Hicks and Andy Shoenborn say that inexperienced writers “rarely get a glimpse behind the scenes and usually only see a finished manuscript. From this outsider’s view, it seems that writing is a gift either you are born with or you are not… We need to help open the doors for our students.”² It’s important to demystify the process of writing.

• Another way to demystify the process of writing is to have students see the process their peers went through. Once their writing is finished, have students in partnerships or groups talk through what their brains did. See if they can trace the path from point A to ending piece. If you do more than partnerships, I recommend setting a timer to ensure that each person shares.

• Have students fill out an exit-slip where they reflect on the activity:

  • Did the WriteBoom help you come up with something you were excited to write about? If so, how come? If not, why do you think that is?

  • What principles/strategies could you use from the WriteBoom the next time you feel like you don’t have anything to write?

• I haven’t tried using a WriteBoom as a pre-writing activity for an “ELA-type” assignment (analytical writing, etc.), but there may be ways to adapt it.

Thank you for reading! I’d love to hear from you if you use this activity or any adaptations of it in your class! If you find something that makes it better, let us know in the comments.

Cheers,

Brandon Merrill

Footnotes

1. Here are some of my takeaways from his practice:

• It seems like he lets his mind free associate. Some of the things he draws seem a little wild. It’s cool that he’s a bit unrestrained that way.

• The end product pulls from many of the previous iterations. It makes me think that I may miss out on cool ideas if I’m simply focused on creating a concluded piece.

• No idea is wasted. The value of an idea doesn’t depend on if it gets used in the end. Sometimes ideas are stepping stones to the next idea. That is valuable in and of itself.

2. Creating Confident Writers page 91.