overachievers

Sometimes an assignment is exactly what it looks like and nothing more. And sometimes, gifted students need help seeing that and breaking down this huge monstrosity into a manageable project. Actually, I bet all students could use that help to a degree.

Here I sit at my computer struggling to write this paper for my class. It is this HUGE paper of epic proportions. I have to write about three people who have made significant contributions to the field of gifted education and what those contributions were. The more research I do, the more lost I feel. I can never write a cohesive paper about this - it is too big! Where do I start? How do I tie it together? In my mind, it is three research papers tied together in name only. The teacher said 3 - 5 pages, but really that won't do, she must have been underestimating...

And then comes my husband who says, it's a 3 -5 page paper. Tie it together with the introduction and the conclusion and separate the body with subject headings. Simplify it. And stop overthinking. Get off the computer, take out a piece of paper and put some form to it be it an outline or a cluster map, get it out of your head onto paper.

Duh. And suddenly, in my mind it is a manageable 7 - 10 page paper. Which is an improvement, if not accurate yet.

And that brings me back to that overachieving slacker phrase my student created. Because that's exactly what I was doing. Because I was making this so MONUMENTAL, I could not even begin.