Curtis WestbayMs. Gunter asked students to think about just two words:
"A smell."
A smell? What about it? From when? From where? Was it sweet, pleasant? Was it repugnant? Did it make you wretch? Or does the faintest hint of it now transport you to a different place or time?
Brainstorming with students isn't a one-size-fits-all process. This prompt that Ms. Gunter offered back in September may not have led to a wave of realizations or a breakthrough for many students, but at least one student connected with this topic so much that it formed the basis for her personal statement. Brainstorming is personal. It takes time. Sometimes to facilitate brainstorming, less is more. Elsewise, we risk implanting our experiences into our student's writing. I don't know about you, but I know my own experience well enough to write about it capably, but I'm not sure I could do the same for others.
We will start brainstorming with G11 students every year after AP exams are completed and that process will continue well into the application cycle. There are many essays that they must write and they must write them all. Brainstorming is the catalyst for good writing, signaling reflection and introspection. Sometimes, students know the experience that they want to write about without hesitation. For others, there is no clear place to start. Observation is useful for this latter group in particular because it doesn't require some resonant personal experience or knowledge of one's worldview. To brainstorm through observation, you don't really even have to look within at all. You start by looking outward: what are the things I have seen, heard, smelled, felt, or tasted that have stuck with me? And how does a repeat sensory experience connect me to a memory? In a way, this is an essay-centered approach, as strong narrative forms the core of a strong personal statement and the narrative won't be as strong without sensory detail.
What does it look like in practice?
Let's assume you're not as imaginative as the student who was off and running with her essay brainstorm after a two-word prompt. What might a counselor do to coach a student in observational brainstorming?
We might start with questions like these:
- What is the smell of your childhood?
- What is the most physically-painful thing you've ever felt?
- Describe your safe haven in full sensory detail.
- What is a color that makes you feel happiest and where do you see it?
- Describe a moment of terror in full sensory detail.
- What is a complex taste that not everyone appreciates?
Counselors aren't really trying to just reveal a good story, though a good story is nice. Some students struggle to identify the things that are important enough to write about or to put a finger on their distinguishing qualities. Students can be closed off to writing at first, especially if they feel like there is nothing they have to say that is interesting. Sensory details are interesting. They take a reader to a more personal place. Students don't need to write a personal statement all at once— sometimes the first step is just harkening back to a sensory experience that has stuck with them. The story is sure to follow.
Just walk and observe.
Students get stuck. Writer's block can halt the process of essaying before it begins. When a student is really stuck, my advice to them is just walk and observe. Stay in the moment. Don't let your mind wander too much. Just focus on the things around you, the things that you walk past every day and may take for granted.
For me, I get stuck staring at the banyan tree.
There is nothing like it where I'm from. The stringy wisps that hang down from the top of the tree look like hair. Someone told me that a particularly big banyan tree I saw near Sea World in Shekou has grown thick over time because those wisps grew into one another, forming dozens of thicker columns that press together in one trunk. I like to think about the tree as a metaphor to proximity. Our lives grow into those of the people we are near until there is no disentangling my thread from theirs. To excise someone's life from my own after they've become intertwined is impossible or dangerous, leaving marks on us both.
Students can likewise find lessons in the things they observe. Brainstorming for a great essay may be as simple as observing the things around them and then thinking about their lives.
