By: Genevieve Scholl

On Tuesday, I started a new class. Composition of Natural and Social Scienes with Mrs. Susan Zuris. It is an English class that teaches us how to write for these specific areas. In our second class, on Thursday, we learned a way to avoid “writer’s block” (which Mrs. Zuris does not believe exists). Take a piece of paper and write your topic at the top of the page (if you do not have a topic you can use this same proccedure for finding a topic as well) and underline it three times. Thinking about the topic in general, start writing a “random, sloppy list” of words or phrases that come to mind when you think about said topic. After your list is generated, start to attach your senses to these words or phrases. For example, instead of just saying that the smell of kettle corn was in the air, you could say “The salty sweet aroma of kettle corn wafted through the air, tempting my taste buds and somehow magically pulling me toward the booth.” See how different you picture this when you add observational features? I have found, in my writing, that this process really does help with “writer’s block”.

Nature

Which brings me to my second part of this post. Have you ever just stopped at thought about what was around you? Now, don’t just say “well, there are clouds and the sky and birds and… blah blah blah”. I am talking about really stopping your life and the world and just watching and listening. Think about the jazzy music that the birds make as they chirp their greetings to the world, think about the whispers you can hear when the wind gently blows against your skin, and when you’re hearing the click click of a keyboard in the library, don’t think about it as annoying, think about how you are hearing every second of the education that is going into that person’s brain, or think about how each click represents the advances we have taken in technology. After all, without the click click, where would we be? Chew on that for a little while 🙂