Types of Prewriting I've used in the past

                          Prewriting has matured as I have matured. It started out with Venn diagrams & charts, & moved onto explicit prewriting skills our AP teachers have taught us. Just last year in my Honors Sophomore English (yes, I'm a junior in a highschool) class my teacher poured on us prewriting tools that will stick with us forever. The biggest & most valuable one was TIME. Unfortunately this year, that is not the case. Just today I wrote a timed write in class. Prewriting is tough when you only have 35 minutes to write a detailed essay worthy of your teacher's time. The most beneficial prewriting tool that helps me is, brainstorming. I'm the type who says, "I know what I want to say but I don't know how to say it" just like it says in the Writing Simplified book. A lot of times brainstorming consists of just sitting there & thinking hard about how two things connect or how this applies to that or even what I should write about. Another thing that helps me out is listing each of the things I need to write about: the topic, the thesis, the body paragraphs, extra details, & the conclusion. I then jot down things next to these words trying to make my essay as best as it can be.