Pre-Writing

As a supplemental instructor for English 1A the instructor allows her students 15 minutes of pre-writing before their in class essays. This allows the students to see the prompt and start brainstorming ideas for their essay. Every student should pre-write before writing any kind of essay so that their thoughts are organized. For the students that come into my study session who need assistance on starting an essay, I always encourage them to pre-write. Next I explain to the student(s) some helpful strategies that I read about in The Longman Guide to Peer Tutoring. One of the strategies I found that most students like is, “Clustering: a visual representation of your thoughts on the topic, usually starting with a single word that invokes word associations” (Gillespie and Lerner, 15). This type of pre-writing is usually a bit messy and tends to look like a web of circles and words. Another strategy a lot of students found to be helpful was, “Outlining: creating an outline can be particularly useful if you feel a strong loss of control—you have lots and lots to say, but need to figure out how you will present that material. (Gillespie and Lerner, 16). There are different ways to arrange an outline but most people start with their thesis, then their body paragraphs, and lastly their conclusion. Each body paragraph should be based on one topic that supports the thesis. All things considered, there are many different ways to pre-write but I have found that these strategies are the most helpful.

Works Cited:

Gillespie, Paula, and Neal Lerner. The Longman Guide to Peer Tutoring. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008. Print.