I recently received a comment asking for tips to help with writer’s block, and this was my response.
Take a read and let me know what you’d add!
A few tricks I suggest for students are:
Starting with a fact, or something else to draw the reader in as a “hook.” It will both be a strong start and likely inspire you as the writer to keep going to explain it. For example, for a persuasive essay about getting a pet, I suggested a student find a research-backed fact about the benefits of having a dog in the home.
For structured writing (like five-paragraph essays), I always suggest students outline their thesis (main idea) and then start with their body paragraphs. Once those are written, then they can move on to write the introduction and conclusion. This way, the intro flows easily as they’ve already written what they need to introduce. I recently had a student do this; she found her three sources (one per paragraph), wrote the body paragraphs first, then introduced them and wrapped them up using the introduction and conclusion paragraphs.
Lastly, you can always try stream-of-consciousness writing. Write about why you can’t think of what to write, and see where your mind and the words go from there.