Has your child ever expressed that they do not like to write because they don’t know how to get started or feel like they don’t have any strong ideas to write about? As a writing tutor, I have heard this thousands of times from new students. In many cases, students associate a lack of brainstorming with being “bad” or “not good” at writing. However, this is not true. By implementing a consistent brainstorming technique, your child can discover excellent ideas and find that they have a lot of great content to write about in their essays.  

While there are many great methods to generate ideas, mind mapping is one of the most effective as it enables students to be creative with their ideas and to visualize how their ideas connect with the entire topic they are writing about.

Here’s how a mind map works:

1) The topic or writing prompt is placed in the center of a document or piece of paper.

2) Main ideas are written out in “thought bubbles” (these are simply circles drawn around each idea that look like a bubble).

3) Sub-points are written down for each main idea to get more specific

4) Connect all the ideas together with lines.

Yes, it is that simple. By centering the topic and branching out from there helps students to focus on each idea, lead to other ideas, and decide which idea(s) they want to write about in their essay. Instead of deliberating over what ideas to write about, your child can have the main ideas of an essay in as little as 10 – 15 minutes while being on their way to writing an excellent essay regardless of the topic.