TO mark the anniversary of 9/11, I'm not going to dispense college essay advice. I'm going to let the teens in this story speak for me. And to my teen writers and applicants, remember that how you reflect on your memories now will change over the years, and that we love you, and we need you to be you. What The Teens Taught Me As a First-Year Teacher on 9/11/01 When I worked in a prestigious NYC private school as a Latin teacher, my first hour of my first day teaching, as a total newbie, was September 11th 2001. The Sept 11th. I was 21 years old, barely out of college, a mere four years older than my oldest students, at the same school I had attended 6th-12th grades. I had been a teacher officially for all of 10 minutes when the first plane hit. That bright morning, the workmen on the roof across the street went berserk, shouting and cursing fantastically and pointing at something our view obstructed. My classroom was on the 9th floor, and the high school students ran to the window excitedly to look for the cause of the fracas. ”No matter what is happening outside the window, what’s happening in here is always more important,” I chided them--because of course it doesn’t get more exciting than the opening spiel to a Latin Language course. They ignored me. I didn’t know then that the ending of verbs would not be the most important thing, or that certain verbs--crashed--could grind everything, including our world as we understood it, to a halt. Continue Reading …
reflection
Free-writing to start your college essay
Benefits of free-writing for your college essay (and creative hygiene!) At this time of year, I start preaching Free-writing as the solution to starting your college essay. Starting, for most students, is the hardest part, and free-writing takes away this obstacle entirely. If you get in the habit of free-writing now you will: Have lots of material by the time you actually need to write an essay. Discover things about yourself-- always a plus. Have a technique to fall back on any time you get stuck in writing. These three things alone are more valuable to you over a life-time than even the most knock-out college essay! What is free-writing, again, and why should you care? Free-writing is what it sounds like, writing freely--or "automatically." Some people call it "stream of conscious" writing. The name is less important than the process. Free-writing to combat writer's block or fear of a crappy essay or thinking you have nothing to say is like jumping off a cliff when you are afraid of cold water below: you jump to address the fear and stalling, not after the fear has magically resolved. When you free-write, you just write, even (and especially) if you sincerely believe you have "NOTHING TO WRITE ABOUT" (I'll call this "NTWA" syndrome). ** NTWA Syndrome is the Big Lie your mind is telling you, when it forgets that it was born creative, and that it comes up with stuff all the time, incessantly. In fact, you can't really get your mind to have nothing going on if you deeply want to. But that's a different post. For now, if you feel NTWA syndrome, just tell yourself "BS! Life is my Material! Imma free-write my way outta this delusion!" Free-writing is a technique, not a hot mess or cheap self-help. So here's how to train yourself. I suggest doing so daily, and yes, I mean daily. Pick a time you'll stick to-- maybe a on a commute, maybe first thing when you wake up, when you think your brain is not really functioning (that state is a Continue Reading …