A common complaint: "I Have Nothing to Write About!" One of the most common things I hear from students at the beginning of the school application process is “I have nothing to write about!” Parents and professionals tell me all the time they get this response when students must answer personal questions about themselves. And as a parent or professional, you know your kid or student is brimming with great ideas, yet when they sit down to write, they produce-- nothing. You remind them what's special about them, but “I have nothing to write about!” they complain. And they probably (think they) mean it. I've been there too. Good news for students: it's really unlikely! You made it this far in life, you definitely have something to write about, you’re just not convinced you do. That usually means it’s just too hard to get started, you feel insecure, you’ve convinced yourself your ideas are poor in advance, or you aren’t thinking specifically enough. The best way to cut through the obstacle, whatever the reason, is just to start! Below I share my favorite tips for doing so. Try them all until something works, because something will. Continue Reading …
Prompts
The Secret of Youth-Writing Prompt
What is the secret of youth? The secret of youth is the subtext of many commercials, crappy diet plans, and plastic surgeries-- none of which I recommend pursuing. (But you know what I will recommend? Writing!). The secret of youth is also something we discover when we get space from our fossilized concepts of how things are. Teenagers have the hard and sometimes gratifying job of shaking us more grown people out of our comfy delusions. But little kids can do that too, just by being themselves, engaging with the world at face value. Continue Reading …
Reject Authority, Build Autonomy
My 7th grade class is full of "good" kids. In fact, you might even call them the "best" kids-- if you believed in ranking children. These are the kids that did all their math worksheets without being asked. The kids that were reading with a flashlight by kindergarten. The kids whose immigrant parents told them every day that if they came home with less than an A, they were going to hear about it, and so was everyone on the block. The slipper was going to come out. The Best Education Money can Buy Can't Also Buy you Autonomy These kids have already gotten far. By the 6th grade, they were accepted into TEAK Fellowship, which until 2019 accepted only 30 kids out of hundreds of applicants, to prime them for the best education money could buy. But in their case, the education would be free. It was an attempt to level the playing field, and put them in the circles where they belonged by their own merit. But what to do when-- because of your age, stage and developing personhood-- your whole body is telling you you need to strike out on your own, take risks, be autonomous? And yet, here you are, in a Fellowship, in Family Systems, that expect a lot from you? What's rebelling against authority worth? In their blood and bones, my kids understand what it is to rebel against authority. They may have read a lot about it, but most have never done it. That doesn't mean they don't know what it would taste like. Fizzzzzzzzzz and fire. They might know-- ancestrally, or because of the circles of oppression which they and their families navigate- what it means to have a colonizer breathing down your neck, making you pay at every turn for...for what? They might know what it means to not be represented in a governing body. To have people speak for you who know nothing about you, and can't handle your hair. To see that the dominant system does not have your best interests at heart, nor is able to pronounce (or remember) your last name. Gomez or Gonzalez? Continue Reading …
Before you write your college essay on video games
Every year, I see a whole bunch of well-meaning students who want to write their college application essays about playing video games, their talent, bliss, hard-earned improvement over time, frustrations when they just can't beat XYZ and-- PSA, please rethink this college essay topic choice, friends. Maybe the topic feels oh-so-right to you, and you're perplexed why I (who am all about student choice) am handing the essay back to you to revise. Yes, you can sometimes "lose all track of time" playing your favorite video games. And isn't that exactly what Common App Prompt #6 is asking about? Sure, the Common App want to know about your total absorption, such that the rest of life falls away (who cares if it's garbage pickup day?), and all that matters is your passion. Right? That is-- until you're stumped, stuck at Level 3 (Common App #6 asks, "Why does it captivate you? "Because I need to get to level four, hello?), and throw your controller at the wall. Maybe you call your cousin for help, the one who regularly locks himself in his room for three days straight with a jumbo size Mountain Dew-You-Ever-Even-Drink-Water (Common App #6 asks, "What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?"). There has got to be more to your life and soul than this. But shouldn't you write your essay about what you love most? (Well, maybe!) AND GAMING MAKES YOU FEEL ALIVE, you'll argue! Yes, these video games are the most exciting thing to you since sliced bread (because, hey, when bread is already sliced, you can blindly pull two pieces out of the bag and put them right in your mouth!). But it's not a great idea to subject admissions readers to your level-upping problems and prowess. Maybe they'll worry you'll spend all your time at their school gaming too-- versus, say, focusing on academics. Or maybe they will feel judgment about a student habit that doesn't add a whole lot to the world. I'm riffing here, and it has nothing to do with Continue Reading …
Stubbing your toe, and getting past The Obvious
I broke my pinky toe this week. What I stubbed it on should have been obvious. I mean, a plastic tub of legos, taking up half the hallway? That my three year-old left there, during his righteous fit? What's more obvious? That's why I don't have a good story to tell you, which is annoying. Pay Attention--starting with the obvious! But my attention was elsewhere. It was past 9PM, and I was on my own righteous mission: to get my older kids to clean up after themselves in the kitchen while the baby meowed from the bedroom. (The three year old harumph-ed along beside me to chide his big brothers.) The minute I felt my toe make contact, I knew I had broken it. Your brain gains a momentary crater where it used to sense a comfortably in-tact body part. In my intero-ception, the damage was obvious. WHAT HAPPENED?, the three year old alarmist said, when he heard my expletives reserved for those choice toe moments. I BROKE MY TOE ON YOUR LEGOS! I half-yelled, because the obvious works better in ALL CAPS. The thing is, when you stub or break your toe, it's almost always on something that's right in front of your face, and could have been avoided. It's not like the walls switch around their location to mess with you and bait your appendages (except in Alice in Wonderland. Or when you're chronically exhausted). Look at the story you're telling yourself... From the site of injury, I started building a story-- sound familiar? "Tomorrow is going to suck...so is the next day...Why did I not put that away?" I also thought: dang, this would be a lot more acceptable if I had a good story to tell. Then I realized, a good story can start with the obvious, it just can't stop there. Moving beyond what's obvious What if I looked more closely at why we don't do what we know we should? Or examined the structure of the foot, the function of toes? What if I wrote about the evolution of emotion, studied my three-year old? The fits he has over things the Continue Reading …
Everything That Happens to You & Prompts
My writing students complained the other day about certain canned responses to their disappointments: Well-meaning folks assured them, "Everything that happens to you is for a reason!" I asked them to raise hands if they agreed or not with this statement. 75% said they disagreed. I'm their writing teacher, and find cliches born of other people's discomfort with our discomfort hard to stomach too. But I suggested a revision: what if you said to them (and yourself), "Everything that happens to you...is for art?" A common problem: Where can I say how I really feel? At a seder this weekend, an older female guest in a glow-worm white jacket confided in me, "We're about to lose our family home. My husband got forced out of his work two years ago. I'm so sad--'" she lowered her voice, "but no one really wants to hear about it." I am always interested in what's really going on for people, and as a result, even strangers often open up for me. I felt for her, what felt like losing her roots. And she was right: it was hard to elicit the empathy she really needed. Much worse things were happening to people everywhere...but so what? This was her grief. She should be able to find an ear for it. My philosophy: Everything That Happens to You Has a Home in Your Art I couldn't tell her this, then, nor did I know if she ever wrote, but we could say: Every single thing that happens to you has a home in your art. That annoying comment your teacher made about your test. That t-shirt you won at the fair. The way your mom looks at you when you get home late. The family home you lost. The cough that wouldn't go away. The school you didn't get into. The kid you hope to have. It doesn't matter what it is: art can handle it. Art will hold it. Art gives you a place to hold it and understand it. In my intro to personal essay class, "Word UP," I ask my students to call out, "Thank you, Life, for giving me my material!" It's goofy but accurate and it never hurts to be Continue Reading …