ABSTRACT
These are statements that students often make when they receive a writing assignment. Sometimes they are so anxious about their writing that they will even put off thinking about the assignment until the night before the paper is due, procrastination compounding anxiety. Then they will stay up all night, staring at a blank screen, tossing unsatisfactory drafts into an already overflowing waste basket, and still not be able to write anything they are proud to submit. Or they may manage to write a draft or part of a draft but then discover that it doesn’t fulfill the requirements of the assignment because they didn’t engage with it seriously. Because students often experience problems with generating ideas, developing effective invention strategies is an important part of the writing class.
