Hey, it’s fall reading week! The weather is getting cooler. Time to curl up with your laptop and a cup of tea, and spend some time getting caught up on your work. What do you have on your plate?
Memorize outlines, not entire essays.
When your instructor shares the essay topic(s) before the exam, it can be tempting to memorize an entire answer in advance. However, if you have a tight schedule during exam season, this strategy may not be the best use of your time! Try memorizing only the basics: the main points that support your argument and the information that proves those points (in other words: an essay outline). This approach not only saves time but also allows for greater flexibility if the adrenaline rush of the exam provides you with new ideas!
Exam essays can be intimidating. Summarizing an entire course in a few pages doesn't seem humanly possible, right?
Well, it's certainly not an easy undertaking — but as a seasoned veteran of exam essays, I can ensure you with confidence that it IS possible. Summarized in four key takeaways, this guide is what I've learned about exam essays and how to survive them.
Spring is here. The birds are singing, the snow has melted, and flowers are poking up through the dirt, both where they are expected and where they are not. At the beginning of winter term, I wrote a blog post on freewriting with a focus on my notebook as an agent of the writing process. I’d like to come back to this general topic, but from a slightly different perspective: spring.
Remember when you were little and just learning how to write? Just writing your name was a huge accomplishment. Yet with practice, it became much easier. The brain is not a muscle; although, in some ways it develops like one. The more you use it in a specific way, the more able it is to perform the task. So what is the brain actually doing while you write? The following are a number of brain areas that work together to form ideas and get them down on paper.
Frontal Lobe
Why is creativity so elusive? We see artists and poets and marvel agape at their powers of creation, but in truth creativity is a learned thing – a practice of insight and introspection. You too have the potential to produce art almost as good as the greats, if only you look in the right places. It doesn’t matter that no one’s listening.
April is national poetry month! It’s that time of year when we celebrate a genre of writing that most people either love or hate. For those of you who do not know me personally, I fall firmly in the “love” category and spend a decent amount of my free time writing in this genre.
Have you ever looked at a finished piece of writing and wondered how someone could ever write something that amazing? Have you ever looked at one of your own first drafts and wondered how it could ever be something worth reading? If you answered yes to either of these questions, then this is the blog post for you.
Breath-taking beauty awaits you in this rainbow-land of fantastic ideas and colour-splashed coping strategies. Consider how grand it might be to pitch-tent upon the blissful symbolic plains of the subconscious.
Prologue