It’s shocking how loud the empty blank page can scream at you. Deafening.
How do we start? One word at a time. Slowly. Just look at the blank page, and conquer it. Write one word. It doesn’t have to be on a line, or small or big. It is just a word.
It is your starting point.
Then, write another word. It does not have to relate to the first word. Make it just the next word that popped into your head.
Then the third, and fourth, and fifth…until you have a lot of words.
Take a short walk, and come back to the pile of words.
Is there a theme? Is there a story hidden in them that wants to speak? If so, add verbs to the nouns and adjectives to the nouns and make a sentence, then another, and one more.
Write until you are done writing what they words want to say.
Then cut half the words out of the story. And then cut them in half again.
Try this in your classroom.