Catching those ideas without killing them

Hi everyone,

Today I am writing the sixth class for the Jones International Mentoring courses. In this section students such as your selves are asked to take the 100+ resources they have collected for their reviews of the literature that pertains to their topics. I find myself musing about ideas and how:

• They enliven when they run freely,
  
• Excite when we organize them but
  
• Drop dead after seven rewrites!
  
• We can avoid death by diagramming before we write
  

It is amazing how ideas can scamper around in our heads. When we chase them down and put them into an outline we have something to work with. One good way to work with ideas without having them lose their vitality is to run them through a group of graphic organizers. For instance does the literature you have discovered cluster into groups? Perhaps with a few ideas that don't fit with the others in between?

Perhaps you might see one idea grow out of others, maybe to begin to spiral back to the place you began.
what every diagrams spurs both your creative analysis of the ideas you have encountered AND helps you keep them fresh in your mind is appropriate for this purpose.

If all goes well with technology I am also embedding a short sketchcast somewhere in this blog. You might also want to Google graphic organizers and look to see the static models provided by Microsoft with their Office software packages. Make up your own or use others, either way I hope this helps you enjoy the learning you are doing be bringing your creativity to the front.

Alana