Tech in the Writing Process: Pre-Writing, Generating Preliminary Ideas

In today’s episode, we'll explore how technology can be integrated into the second part of the pre-writing process, generating preliminary ideas. Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

Transcript

Paul Beckermann 0:01 Welcome to Tech Talk for Teachers. I'm your host, Paul Beckermann.

Transition Music with Rena's Children 0:09 Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What's in the toolkit? Check it out.

Paul Beckermann 0:15 The topic of today's episode is tech in the writing process: pre-writing, generating preliminary ideas. In last week's episode of Tech Talk for Teachers, I broke down the first part of the pre-writing stage of the writing process, clarifying your writing task. Today, I'm going to continue with the pre-writing phase of the writing process and focus on the next task: generating preliminary ideas.

Once you've defined your task in the pre-writing phase and have a clear mission for your writing, you want to generate some preliminary ideas to inform your work. This might look different depending on your purpose. If you're engaging in creative writing, you may want to begin by brainstorming.

Brainstorming is a great way to get initial ideas down on paper without evaluation. In fact, the key to quality brainstorming is to turn off your internal critic and let the unfiltered ideas just spill out. This can be challenging, but it's a key component in tapping into your right-brain thinking or the creative half of your brain. Banish those logical thoughts for a while, and the inclination to self-critique. Let your imagination have fun making random, free associations. This is where the most original ideas are born.

I know that in school, sometimes we're conditioned to just look for the right answer, but here are the ideas to open it up to all the possibilities that are out there. During this process, you may find that you come up with ideas that even surprise you. The brain is an amazing thing, and it can create amazing new ideas. Once you learn to turn it loose, you can certainly use paper and pencil to brainstorm ideas, but technology can be used to enhance it as well. Let me share with you three ideas you might consider if you're doing creative writing, or other types of writing that won't require research.

Transition Music with Rena's Children 2:05 Here are your three. Here are your free tips. Here are your three tips.

Paul Beckermann 2:11 Number one, use voice-to-text technology such as the voice typing feature in Google Docs. While you certainly can type your ideas as you think about them, the act of typing can sometimes be a hindrance to getting the ideas on paper quickly. Not all students are good typers. That's where the voice typing comes in. Your students speak their ideas, and the voice typing converts that speech to typed text on the document. This is almost always faster than typing, even if you end up having to clean up unintended errors later.

In fact, I remember testing this at a workshop I attended. We were asked to brainstorm two different ways: once by typing ideas and once by using voice typing. Even though I'm a pretty good typer, I was able to generate more than twice as many ideas using the voice typing feature than if I typed the ideas myself. This is a significant improvement, since quantity of ideas is a key to brainstorming.

The second digital tool you might consider is something called The Most Dangerous Writing App. This tool is actually a website by Squibbler that inspires free writing with a creative approach. Free writing is similar to brainstorming, but usually it involves writing in sentences or more complete thoughts, rather than simply listing single words or ideas. The Most Dangerous Writing App offers a writing space that you can use online and a time limit to get you started.

On the surface, this doesn't seem very unique; however, there's a catch: You must keep writing continuously. If you stop, everything you've written will disappear. The intent is to get you free writing and generating as many ideas as possible in a short amount of time. The threat of losing your writing is intended to keep you putting down words no matter what, even if you have to type the same word over and over for a while until you get a new idea. This is done so that your right brain releases those ideas without editing. You can set the timer, and then you can choose to receive a randomly AI-generated prompt, or you can start writing without a prompt, so you can choose the topic of your choice. It's up to you. For even more fun, choose Hardcore Mode. With this setting turned on, your writing will be blurred until you finish.

Number three: using generative AI chat bots like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and Claude. When using these, it's important that the AI doesn't do the actual writing for you. However, it can be a great way to work through writer's block and to brainstorm options to consider. For instance, students might take what they've written in one of their previous pre-writing activities and then paste that into the chat bot. So you're starting with student work.

Then they can ask the chat bot questions about those ideas, things like: "What am I missing? What might I want to consider next, based on this beginning of a story? What are some possible ways that I might consider developing it further? What are some possible conflicts I haven't thought about?"

Essentially, the chat bot becomes a brainstorm partner and a way to bounce ideas around. Of course, it's also valuable to ask these types of questions in collaborative groups or with a partner in class, but chat bots can have a place in the process as well.

If your writing goal is expository and not creative in nature, you'll probably want to do a little preliminary research and idea exploration first to give you context during the brainstorm process. After all, it's hard to brainstorm if you don't know anything about a topic. Here are a few tools and strategies that you can use for this type of research.

Transition Music with Rena's Children 5:46 Here is your list of tips. Here is your list. Here is your here is your list of tips.

Paul Beckermann 5:53 Number one, conduct a general web search. Use Google or another web browser and search for your topic. The key is to keep it broad. When you begin, start with just your general topic, then scan the results for keywords and general ideas that seem to come up repeatedly. These are likely subtopics that deserve further exploration.

If you see terms or names that you don't recognize, you'll probably want to dig into those and find out more as well. You may also run across related topics that you hadn't initially considered. These topics might lead you in a new direction or in refining your topic. This can be helpful.

Also be on the lookout for synonyms. Are there other terms used to describe your topic? If there are, you might consider doing another general search using one of those terms. In fact, as you learn more, you may discover that you are not using the best keyword to begin with.

Number two, search an encyclopedia.

Encyclopedias are not intended for serious research, but they're excellent for providing general information and a good starting point. Since you're just collecting ideas at this point in the pre-writing process, free online encyclopedias like Britannica or Britannica Kids for younger students, or even a crowd-sourced Wikipedia, can be great options.

As you look through an encyclopedia entry for your general topic, look for clues. What are the key aspects of your topic? What are people debating? Is there key vocabulary that you need to know? What should you explore next?

To answer these questions, look to the following features included in most online encyclopedias:

• Outlines: Does the encyclopedia break down the topic into outline format? This can be very helpful in identifying key aspects of a larger topic.
• Headings: Scan the headings to see how the topic has been broken down.
• Bold or hyperlinked words: Encyclopedias often bold or hyperlink the keywords in the text.

If they're called out, they're probably important, so take note of these. It can be especially helpful to find names of people, places, events, and studies.

• Bibliographies or References: You'll often find a gold mine of resource material at the bottom of encyclopedia entries. Follow up on these to dig deeper into the topic. Hyperlinks often make it quick and easy to jump to these other resources.
• See also References: Many times you'll find "See also" lists that can guide you to related subjects and can better inform your quest for information.

All right. Number three is to use research databases. While databases will often be the source of more specific research later on in the process, they can also help provide context and overview at this stage. By conducting a general search, you'll often find many of the same features available in encyclopedias: content outlines, keywords, and "See also" References.

Number four: generative AI chat bots again, like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and Claude.

I would not recommend using these tools as your only tool for generating preliminary ideas in research, since it can hallucinate or make up information, and they can be inaccurate. However, they're very intuitive to interact with, so they can be helpful tools, especially in spurring new thoughts and imagination.

There are a few ways that you might consider having students use them. One would be to help break down a larger topic into smaller parts. To do this, students might enter a prompt: "You're writing a research essay, and your topic is blank. Fill in the blank here. How would you break this topic down into sub-parts? What topics are related to this general subject that might be relevant in this paper?"

Or they might ask: "What related topics should I research to gain a better understanding of my topic before beginning to write?" You can also encourage students to engage in a conversation about their topic with the chat bot, again, posing questions they might prompt.

Something like: "I'm considering writing a paper about [blank]. What should I know about this topic before I begin writing?" or "I understand this aspect of my topic, but I'm confused about this. Could you explain it to me?"

Or cue the chat bot to be the writer: "You are writing a paper about [blank]. What questions would you want answered before beginning to write about this?"

The chat bot may ask follow-up questions, and students should be encouraged to engage in the back and forth. As I mentioned, I wouldn't use this tool all by itself. I'd use it in conjunction with the other strategies I mentioned. Students should be on the lookout for any inconsistencies in the ideas that the chat bot gives versus the other research that they have encountered, and then they should fact-check the differences.

In general, when you're using any of these strategies at this point in the process, you're not looking for specific evidence or supporting content yet.

You're in the idea gathering stage, and you're looking to gain a better general understanding of the topic, which will allow you to discover subtopics and key ideas to explore further. Because of this, you don't need to keep detailed notes at this stage of the process, but you should keep track of the keywords and ideas you find that you think you want to use later; you'll reference these in future steps.

By the end of the task, you should have generated enough focus to be able to identify the general idea of your creative writing or the thesis for your expository work. This clear focus will be essential in guiding you through the next steps.

Now this might seem like an involved process to go through before you ever begin writing, but doing a thorough job at this phase of the process will set your students up for much greater success once they begin their actual writing. And we're not done with the pre-writing work just yet.

Paul Beckermann 10:04 Tune in next week as I continue sharing strategies and technology tools that your students can use to complete the pre-writing phase of the writing process.

To learn more about today's topic and explore other free resources, visit AVID Open Access.org. Specifically, I encourage you to check out the article collection, "Power Up and Enhance the Writing Process with Technology."

And of course, be sure to join Rena Winston and me every Wednesday for our full-length podcast, "Unpacking Education," where we're joined by exceptional guests and explore education topics that are important to you. Thanks for listening. Take care and thanks for all you do. You make a difference.