My Favorite Dessert: A Workshop for Critical and Creative Thinking

The one-word focus is at the heart of "My Favorite Dessert," an exercise I often use to launch writing workshops and visits to classes.
It's fun and also provides another forum to discuss the importance of critical thinking. Here's how I run it:

1. I tell people of my prejudice about writing workshops, namely that people should actually write, including myself. Then I tell them that normally I ask people to write about something light, but that I wouldn't presume to ask that of a group that is obviously so intelligent, serious, talented, etc. etc.
2. Then I write the topic on the board, slowly, in big letters: MY FAVORITE DESSERT.
3. Next I introduce the concept of "free writing." I write the term on the board and ask if anyone knows what it is. Interestingly, among groups of working journalists most have never heard of it, but there is always one or two who are familiar with it. "Stream of consciousness," they may say. "Just writing whatever comes to your mind."
   Building on their answers, I explain that free writing means lowering your standards and writing whatever comes to mind. The rules are simple: When I say "Start," we will put our pens to the pad (or fingers to the keyboard) and write until I say "Stop."
   The value of free writing is that it allows you to get past that little voice that you hear whenever you face a writing challenge, you know, the one that whispers, "You stink."
   That internal editor is a force that keeps writers from the process of discovery that writing entails, and robs them of the chance to produce writing that surprises them as well as their readers. Gail Godwin, the novelist, wrote about this voice in a New York Times op-ed piece, entitled "The Watcher at the Gates." The phrase is found in Sigmund Freud's correspondence and Godwin says her job is to race past that "watcher" that tries to censor her.
   Racing past the "watcher" means writing without worrying about spelling, punctuation, whether what you're writing makes any sense. I tell people that they can even write things like, "I don't have anything to say. I don't like dessert and this guy is making me write, so I'll keep writing until he says, "Stop." Eventually, they will drop the objections and begin discovering what they didn't know they knew when they first put the pen to paper.
   The free writing lasts 4-5 minutes and I am writing along with the class. This is a critical element. Students need to see the teacher struggling with the blank page. They need to see you experience the process of discovery - and you need to see it too. I have written about "My Favorite Dessert" dozens of times in the last few years and though the topic is the same - icebox cake - the words that emerge always contain some surprises.
   
4. Have the group count their words, which is a subtle way to demonstrate how fast they can write when they drop their guard and let the words flow. The goal is to produce copy that can be revised, to "get black on white," as Guy de Maupassant, the French short story master, advised.
   Here's an example, which I wrote during a writing workshop in Oct. 1999 at The Boston Globe
   
   My Favorite Dessert
   Icebox cake is made with dark chocolate wafers the size of sand dollars coated with whipped cream and chilled overnight in the ice box. That's what we called the fridge in 1961 in Cos Cob, Conn. where I was the birthday boy. I was 10 and we were all still reeling from the death of my father. The cake was a gift from my sister, Sharon, 18 months my elder, and was her way I think of bringing some sweetness into an existence that nine months after March 25, 1960 was as bitter and on many days as the charcoal-colored wafers in the cake. It was sweet and if you left it in the icebox long enough the cream soaked into the cookies penetrating their structure and transforming them into an alchemy of sugar, chocolate and love.
   
   
5. It's time to share our writing. If the class is small enough - under 6 people, we read our free writing aloud to the entire group. But in most cases, I pair the class up in teams of two and have them decide who goes first and who goes second. I give the ground rules for reading: read what you wrote to your partner, just what's on the page, no embellishments. Before they begin I point out that at times like this it's normal for people to want to begin reading by apologizing: "This really sucks. I'm embarrassed. I didn't know we were going to have to write. I've done some good writing in the past. I can even show you something. I think I've got it in my backpack or back in my room." But that wastes precious time, I say, so I give a "blanket apology" that absolves us all of the terrible writing we think we've done. (The point here is to acknowledge the fears that we all share about exposing ourselves, but move beyond them.) So now they read what they wrote to each other, as quickly as possible. Other than listening intently, perhaps saying, "Oh yeah, I love ice cream too," the reader gives no response, no criticism.
6. Now it's time to do some focusing work. I ask the group to assume their role as readers of their partner's work. First, write down the favorite dessert their partner wrote about. Then, I say, "What were they really writing about? Answer the question with just one word. Just one. What were they really writing about?" I don't explain what I'm asking for.
7. Now I go to the board and quickly make a grid:
   In column 1 I list the desserts. In column 2 I list the one-word answers each reader has given the story.
   
   

   Icebox cake	Sister	.....................
   Apple pie	Nostalgia
   Tiramisu	Passion

   
   Then I ask people to step into their role as writer. "What is the story you wrote really about?" Before they write the answer, I tell them the story behind the story, found on pp. 74-77, that I wrote about Jed Barton and the lesson that my editor, Joel Rawson, taught me the day he demanded to know, "What's this story really about?"
   Then I repeat, "What's your "Favorite Dessert" story really about? In one word."
   Now, I go around the room again and fill in the answers in Column 3.
   
   

   Icebox cake	Sister	gratitude
   Apple pie	Childhood	regret
   Tiramisu	indulgence	Passion

   
   With the lists completed, I say if Column 1 represents the "subjects" of our stories, what title would we give Columns 2 and 3? The answers usually include point, moral, message. All of them are correct, but when I restate it by saying, "What's a literary term?" someone usually says, "Theme" which is the word I'm looking for because my favorite definition of theme is "meaning in a word."
   (Note: some people take the question very literally and give answers like "pie" or "dessert." I don't react to that because when they see what others are saying they usually grasp the difference.)
8. At this point, I generate a discussion among the group by posing these questions:
   What observations or conclusions might you draw about the differences or similarities between the words in columns 2 and 3?
   What reactions do the writers have to the themes defined by the reader?
   What reaction do the readers have to the theme defined by the writers?
9. Finally, I make the point that what we've been doing, besides writing and reading, and having some fun, is critical thinking, or to use the word from the process approach, focusing. Drawing on the material in this section, I quote David Marannis, Pulitzer Prize winning Washington Post reporter, from his interview in Best Newspaper Writing 1997:
   I've always maintained that great writing is impossible without great reporting. You have to have all the facts and try to have more than anyone else, but the one ingredient that's often left out of the whole process is not the writing or the reporting, but the thinking. You have to think your way through the story and how you're going to tell it to the readers first.

The point I am trying to make is that reporters have to do this kind of work because that is what readers and viewers need and expect from them. And "What's this story really about" is a useful technique for discovering a story's theme.