BRAIN SPELUNKING

Today we dove deep into the subconscious to find out what really is going on in our brains; it turned out to be crazier than we could have imagined. We tricked out brains into divulging information that normally it only lets loose in our dreams. 
The first way we did this was by writing continually for 20 minutes without stopping. Each student had written a few cards of random things that they could use if they got stuck, but they had to write for the entire time. The rationale is to keep writing so quickly that the brain doesn't have a chance to filter anything out, so the weird stuff happening in the subconscious can make it onto the page. The cards were used to surprise the brain into making unusual connections. 
After that each student wrote down three questions beginning with "why" and three answers beginning with "because", the answers did not have to fit the questions. Then we paired up and one student read their question and the other read their answer. Then everyone wrote a crazy poem starting with their favorite set of question and answers. The rationale is the randomness of the pairing circumvents cause and effect built on logic, which forces the brain into confronting nonsense as logic. All of this made for some fabulous poems. 
This was a great lesson for just letting go and writing whatever comes to mind. A lot of students get so caught up in worrying about what they put on the paper that they can't get their thoughts down, this lesson helped them bypass that road block.
Homework is to write more free form poetry, like what we did in class.