Q: Writing about yourself can be tough, because there is so much you can say. You have a lifetime of experiences, talents, and skills to summarize in a paragraph, or two. Whatever kind of writing you are planning on doing, whatever your purpose, just think about it like you are introducing yourself to a stranger. What do they need to know? Answer questions like:  Who are you? What is your background? What are your interests? What are your talents? What are your achievements? What challenges have you faced? If you are not sure where to start, or if you are limited to one thing for the assignment, start by making a list. Brainstorm good ideas that will help you decide, then sketch out as many different answers as you feel necessary.. Pick one specific topic, describe it in detail, and use that to introduce yourself. It is better to pick one thing and use a lot of detail, than to give someone a big long list of general items. What is your most interesting or unique quality? What word(s) describes you the best? Choose that topic. When you have a specific topic to narrow in on, give the reader unique details to hold onto. Remember, you are describing yourself and add details that show you in a positive light:  Bad: I like sports. Ok: I'm a fan of basketball, football, tennis, and soccer. Good: My favorite sport is football, both to watch and to play. Better: When I was growing up, I would watch Big Ten football with my dad and brothers every Saturday, before we'd go outside and toss the football around. I've loved it ever since. . Even if you are very accomplished or talented, you want to come across like a down-to-earth person. Do not write about yourself to brag. List your accomplishments and your successes, but temper them with some more humble language:  Braggy: I'm the best and most dynamic worker at my company right now, so you should want to hire me for my talents. Humble: I was lucky enough to be awarded three employee of the month awards at my current job. Turns out it was a company record.
A: Introduce yourself. Start with a short list of your talents and interests. Narrow your topic. Use a few good details. Be humble

Q: This type of outline will touch on all the major parts of your speech, making it easier for you to divide it into manageable parts. Use bullet points that describe the main themes of each section of your speech, as well as any smaller themes or points within these sections.  For instance, instead of writing “When I was a child, I was attacked by a dog. It was a mean old dog that belonged to my neighbor at the time. Ever since then, I've been afraid of dogs,” simply write “dog attack story.” Writing your outline this way will prevent you from memorizing the exact words you intend to use in your speech, which would make you sound robotic instead of natural. Your outline should include all major ideas and all major supporting ideas. If you have any special examples or analogies you want to use within your speech, these also warrant bullet points. Each main idea or major supporting detail that was written as a bullet point in your outline should be considered a distinct section. If you have multiple bullet points that are very similar to each other, these can also be lumped together into a single section.  For example, if 1 bullet point reads “my semester abroad in China” and the next bullet reads “attending a Chinese school,” these can be combined into a single section called “my experiences in China.” These sections should logically flow into each other in a comfortable narrative format. Think of them as the different acts in a story you're telling the audience. If you did not write an outline or do not like the way your information is organized into bullet points on the outline, you could opt to divide your speech by paragraph instead of by bullet point. The idea is mostly to assign one major idea to each part. Choose an image that is related to the theme of the speech section, but which is also a little bit odd or off the wall. The more absurd and unique the image is, the easier it will be to recall it later. For instance, if a part of your speech mentions that coconut oil can help hair grow faster, you could imagine something like Rapunzel sitting on top of a tower made of coconuts or living in a room filled with coconuts. Rapunzel emphasizes the idea of long hair, while the coconuts help point out the connection to coconut oil. Pick out areas of your home, such as the kitchen sink, your work desk, or the top of the coffee table, and match these areas to the sections of your speech. They don't necessarily have to be related to the theme of the speech section; each section just needs to be attached to a location.  For example, the section of your speech on your experiences abroad can be assigned to your bathroom sink if you like. You can choose another location besides your home if you like, such as your office or the road you drive on to get to work. The location can be near or far; the choice is up to you. Ultimately, though, you should be able to navigate it well enough in your mind to find your way to your various visuals. Alternatively, you could also use the human body as a map. The images can be “tattooed” onto the body in your mind, and as you travel along the body, you will hit the images in order more naturally. With the locations and visualizations set, you need to begin practicing your speech by relying on these visuals for guidance. As you practice, actually imagine yourself traveling from location to location, viewing each image in the order that its corresponding bullet point falls within your speech.  Construct narrative links between each mental image. For example, if your visual for the dog attack story was a bandaid and your visual for your experiences in China was a dumpling, imagine yourself putting a bandaid on in the bathroom, then walking into the kitchen to find a dumpling on the counter. You need to have firm links connecting one visualization to the next. If not, you might forget the order your information is supposed to land in.
A: Write an outline of the speech using bullet points instead of sentences. Divide the speech into distinct sections based on your outline. Visualize a mental image for each section of your speech. Assign each of these images a location in your home. Practice linking the visuals together to recall your speech.

Q: Try thinking of time signatures as bags of oranges or explaining time values in terms of soldiers marching along behind a band. Be as creative as possible. This will keep your student alert and interested.
A:
There's always some way to make things a bit more interesting.