ABSTRACT
Once students have had a taste of what it feels like to write something that others can appreciate, an issue for the teacher is how to help them remember what to write about. The axiom “write what you know” is helpful only to the extent that students can access what they know and care about. One strategy they can learn is “mind hopping,” or a facile moving from place to place, event to event, person to person, or time to time in the mind, thereby conjuring up memories. The teacher can effectively demonstrate this by free-associating for the class. Not only will they easily learn the strategy through this modeling, but they will also at the same time learn more about their teacher. Who is that teacher up there, and who are these classmates, and by the way, who am I? These are unspoken questions. To the degree that they are answered, the classroom can become more of a community of learners. Mind hopping, or free-associating life’s experience, can be a private matter for students, preparing them to write scenes and anecdotes, or the content can be shared with a partner or larger group. The memories can then be expanded orally and put into writing, or immediately recreated in writing. The possibilities also exist for poetry, sketch writing, improvisation, and even short stories.
