Brainstorming: A Heroes Guide to Pre-writing

Before I forget my latest idea, I figured it would be a good time to add a new blog post. As I was daydreaming today, thinking about my weekly homework assignments and the way I could "lite a fire" in my future students, I came up with an idea regarding the pre-writing process. I like to call it, my "my author senses are tingling."

For some reason, I couldn't get my brain off the idea of super hero's and "what would Spider-man do?" 

I launched my ideas off the main fact that heroes, like Spider-man, are beloved by children everywhere, and just like writers, they have to come up with ways to approach their problems and come up with a plan to "save the day." 

From there, I ran with the idea. My students could use the phrase, "My author senses are tingling," to kick start their brainstorming and encourage their ideas to flow more easily. I could tell them all about my ideas, being sure to model my approach: 

                   "My author senses are tingling...." I would begin. 

                   "They're creating a story in my head." 

                   "But what should I do with these ideas?"

                   "QUICK, grab me a piece of paper, I'll draw a picture....or wait, wait, I could write down some key words that will remind me what I am stirring up in my head. Or, maybe like Spider-man does, I can put my ideas on a web and save them for later."

This was the dialogue I envisioned the lesson playing out in my head. I could then go around the room and ask the students what they're Spidey senses are saying. I could give them sheets of paper with a picture of a web on it and they could glue spiders or bugs with ideas on them onto the web. There's so many ways I could get their ideas flowing in a more exciting way that could get them to want to plan their writing ideas. 

It's exactly the way I would pre-write. I would want to make it fun. Try out different ways to capture my ideas before my poor short term memory got the best of me. I believe it could inspire creativity and encourage new ideas. It could even make writing the most boring topic paper seem like less of a burden and add some flavor to the process.