First of All,

Yesterday, a student who had no idea what she was going to write about was worried about her introduction. Today, I asked a student who needs to revise a paper what she plans to do; she said, "First of all, I need to make it longer."

No. First of all, both of them need to figure out what they are saying. It's like they are planning trips without deciding where they are going. Actually, in the second student's case, she took the trip with only a vague idea of where she was going, didn't really map out her route, and didn't remember her trip well enough to make it worth her while.

For the first student, the one who worried about her introduction: Her teacher was standing with us. I asked the student which one, her teacher or me, she could introduce better. She said her teacher. All she could do for me, since she just met me, was remember my name and my job. Not an absolute failure of an intro, but not a thorough one, either. I told her she shouldn't worry about introducing something she doesn't know well. She should figure out what she has to say (she was leaning toward arguing something about coaching methods for children, about keeping it about teamwork and the like instead of becoming a raging lunatic who only cares about winning and forgets that the kids are more interesting in the orange slices after the game) before she tries to write her intro. I told her to write her introduction last if she wanted. She seemed calmer and more willing to explore an idea instead of stressed about completing a paper.

For the second student, the one who wanted to first of all make it longer: longer about nothing is worth nothing, so first of all, we talked about her core idea. Second of all, we broke down what she meant and where she could take that idea in terms of smaller ideas (paragraphs!). Later, as she was working, I asked her about one of her statements. She spat out a general "explanation" in a tone that said You Know, Or At Least You Should Know Because I Know. We talked about her job as the writer--the expert--to give us the details, about how we don't know what she knows, and about how that is where the length of papers can come from, in the provision of clear, meaningful details that help people know what they didn't know.