Your first assignment is to do free writing, sometimes called "stream of consciousness," on the topic, "My Name," using the following guidelines:
- Start with a blank document on your computer or a blank piece of paper. (Use at least B5-size paper or, preferably, larger. A smaller sized paper may cramp your style, that is, limit the amount of ideas you end up writing. Also, use a pencil, not a pen.)
- Give yourself a time limit, for example, 10 minutes, and type or write as much as you can during that time.
- Type or write down any and all ideas that come into your head about the subject. Don't start censoring yourself saying, "This is stupid," or "This isn't connected to the topic."
- Don't worry about grammatical or spelling mistakes.
- Keep writing. Don't stop!
- If you can't think of anything to write, simply write, "I can't think of anything to write." It's fine if you keep writing the same ideas over and over again.
- If you can't think of the word you want, put a blank space or another word that you can change later.
- If you can't think of a word in English, write one in Japanese. However, do most of your writing in English!
Remember that this is only a way of generating ideas. Later, we will work on refining those ideas.