Creating the Storm:Development of Ideas in Exhausted Waters

David E Sutton, PhD.

The Topic

The personal autobiographical (or memoir) essay is a topic used in writing classrooms across Texas from grade school through college. For this reason, the topic is often the most difficult to answer because the topic seems exhausted, old, and boring.

Still, there is a strong likelihood that you may be asked to write this topic once more. If that were the case, could you find a new angle? Could you breathe new life into the topic? Could you find inspiration to make your piece more than a course requirement? Could you make it enjoyable?

Let us discover the answer, together.

Write an essay discussing a place you consider to be of personal importance. Craft a textual

representation of the place that will allow the audience to be rhetorically persuaded to enjoy your

piece on an ethical, logical, and emotional level.

The Method To discover new ideas for this topic, to expand your horizons, you

will need:

1. A place of importance in your thoughts. 2. Paper and a pen.3. An open mind.4. Trust.

If you possess these four items, you are ready to discover a new method for developing ideas.

Focused Free Writing

Sand, castles, salty, brown, windy, ships, jellyfish, sharks, bonfire, red, yellow, hot, large, happy, sad, fun, quick, Matt, Thomas, Felicia, Jessica, Kimberly, me, friends, together, end of the road together.

Group Like Items:For instance, one grouping

might focus on the bonfire. Grouped ideas for one part of

the paper might include: bonfire (the topic); red, yellow, hot, large (adjectives to describe the appearance of the fire); Matt, Thomas, Felicia, Jessica, Kimberly, me (people near the bonfire); friends (describes the group); end of the road together (what the fire symbolized); fun and sad (describes the mood of the people.

INSTRUCTOR’S EXAMPLE

Just because the topics are used for one part of a paper doesn’t mean they are not useable for others. For instance, the friends may choose to create castles in the sand together.

Focused Meditation The process you just completed was a form of focused meditation,

designed to help students accomplish a few important tasks:1. Relax – Writers often talk about mental blocks that keep them

from progressing. Far too often, writers could remove these blocks if they just relaxed. Removing all external interruptions, relaxing, and just taking it easy for a few moments can mean the world to a stressed writer.

2. Generate New Ideas – If students think they have explored the topic of an autobiographical narrative to its fullest, introduce a new way to focus. By imagining their location, event, environment, whatever the topic may be, they are given a unique opportunity to revisit the focus and discover overlooked or forgotten points.

3. Passion – An essay written without passion is an essay doomed from the start. Yes, impassioned essays can get decent marks, but an essay filled to the brim with the passion of the writer is often exciting and engaging. Moreover, students with a passion for their topics will often go out of their way to represent the topic correctly; thus, the essays produced are often stronger than those written without passion.

Creating the Storm:Development of Ideas in Exhausted Waters

David E Sutton, PhD.