Writer’s block is a familiar phenomenon to both students and professional writers. Perhaps the simplest thing to realize is that you can always write, even if you’re blocked. It’s called freewriting. Another technique is simply listing all the thoughts that come to your mind. After you’ve done some of this informal writing, you may in a relaxed fashion reread what you’ve written to search for those nuggets that seem promising. In this example, you can see the student freewriting about an essay she has read in order to discover her own idea.