When “Pay Attention” Isn’t Actually a Strategy

“Pay attention.”

“Focus.”

“Just get started.”

All perfectly reasonable things to want a student to do.

There’s just one problem: none of them actually tells a student how to do it.

I see this with students all the time. An assignment is sitting in front of them. They’ve read the prompt. They may even have done this kind of work before.

And then I get:

“I don’t know.”

Sometimes that means I genuinely don’t understand this.

But sometimes it means something closer to:

I don’t know how to get from looking at this assignment to actually doing it.

Those are two very different problems.

A Student Can Be Distracted and Still Be Capable

One of the interesting things about tutoring online is that a student who supposedly has absolutely no idea what to say about an English assignment can suddenly have quite a lot to say about something else.

I have spent fifteen minutes debating with a student about which LEGO Advent calendar looked best.

Or there’s something they did in another class that I absolutely need to see.

Or we have somehow wandered into Star Wars or video-game territory, and the student has correctly identified subjects on which Ms. Virginia can also be distracted.

Believe me, I know what they’re doing.

But it’s also useful information.

This student who “doesn’t know” suddenly has opinions, explanations, comparisons, and plenty of words.

The words aren’t the problem.

Getting them pointed at the assignment is.

Sometimes the First Step Is the Problem

When one of my students gets stuck, I usually give them a little time.

Then I’ll ask:

“Okay. What does this assignment mean to you? What does it want you to do?”

Or:

“What’s your opinion on it? Whaddaya think about the prompt? What’s it saying?”

And then I listen.

Very often, the student who couldn’t figure out how to begin starts talking.

While they’re talking, I may quietly open a Google Doc and start writing down what they’re saying.

Not beautiful sentences.

Sometimes not sentences at all.

A few words here. An idea there. Something that belongs under something else. A note that we’re going to need an example here.

Basically, a very sloppy outline.

And that’s often the magic key.

I haven’t given the student the ideas. I’ve made the student’s own thinking visible.

Now we’re no longer starting with an empty page.

We have something to work with.

The World’s Ugliest Outline Is Still an Outline

Sometimes my hideously messy outline is enough.

Sometimes we’ll throw the ideas into boxes or a graphic organizer instead. I have students who like seeing everything separated into pieces before they start putting it together.

And sometimes we just agree to work on the thing for ten minutes.

Ten minutes sounds a whole lot less awful than “finish your essay.”

I’m not changing what they have to do.

I’m helping them find somewhere to start.

I’m Not Lowering the Bar

I know my students.

If we’re looking at something a student has successfully done before, I usually have a pretty good idea whether we’re dealing with I don’t understand this or I really, really don’t feel like starting this.

And yes, procrastination is real.

Sometimes a student would simply rather do something else. I’m not going to pretend every difficulty getting started has some deeper explanation.

But “just start” still isn’t particularly useful.

If I know a student can write the essay, I’m not going to turn it into a paragraph just because getting started is hard.

We might talk through the prompt. We might make a spectacularly messy outline. We might figure out what that first paragraph actually needs to say.

Usually, once we get a little something onto the page, the assignment stops looking quite so impossible.

The expectation hasn’t changed.

We’ve just found a way into it.

And Then There’s the Deadline-Adrenaline Trick

Students with ADHD can be truly impressive procrastinators.

And there’s a reason some of them become very attached to working at the last possible minute.

They’ll tell you they work better under pressure.

The annoying part?

They aren’t altogether wrong.

That looming deadline can sometimes produce exactly the burst of attention that was missing three days earlier. Suddenly, the student who couldn’t get started is writing like mad.

I know this trick rather well.

I was doing it myself at 16.

My mother—who was an English teacher—once ran into my English teacher and ratted me out.

Thanks, Mom.

I’ve watched my own kids discover the same strategy.

So I understand the appeal.

But there’s a rather large problem with relying on deadline adrenaline:

It leaves no room for what comes next.

A student may produce genuinely good ideas in that last-minute burst. But if the essay is finished twelve minutes before it has to be submitted, there’s no time to reread it.

There’s no time to notice that the third paragraph doesn’t quite support the thesis.

There’s no time to realize that a good idea needs more explanation.

There’s no time to reorganize.

There’s no time to edit.

This is one reason I’m such a believer in write first, edit later. Getting the ideas onto the page and editing them are different jobs—but “later” only works if you actually leave yourself some later.

Sometimes the student understands the material perfectly well and has good ideas—and still gets a disappointing grade because the deadline rush only left time for the first part of the writing process.

Last-minute pressure can get a student started.

It just shouldn’t be the only way they know how.

This Isn’t Just an ADHD Thing

I work with quite a few students with ADHD, so yes, I see this a lot.

But I’ve also seen it with students who are tired, overwhelmed, distracted, bored, or looking at an assignment that suddenly feels enormous.

I don’t need to diagnose why a student isn’t starting. That’s not my job.

I do need to figure out whether they understand the assignment—and, if they do, what’s keeping us from getting the first few words onto the page.

Sometimes that means making the first step smaller.

Sometimes it means saying it out loud instead of staring at the screen.

Sometimes it means getting one distraction out of the way.

Sometimes it means a short timer, a quick break, or putting something on paper that the student is trying to keep straight in their head.

None of those things makes the assignment easier.

They make starting it easier.

“Pay Attention” Isn’t a Plan

If “pay attention” worked, most of us would only have to say it once.

Same with “focus.”

And my personal favorite:

“Just get started.”

Started where?

That’s usually the question I’m more interested in.

Maybe we need to make the assignment smaller for the next ten minutes. Maybe we need to talk instead of write. Maybe we need the world’s ugliest outline. Maybe we need to get one distracting thing out of the way first.

We don’t have to solve the student’s entire relationship with attention before dinner.

We just need to find a way into this piece of work.

And sometimes the first strategy is as simple as:

“Okay. Walk me through this one.”

Need Something to Try Tonight?

When a student is staring at an assignment and getting absolutely nowhere, you don’t need another lecture about focus.

You need something to try.

I put together The Focus Reset: 7 Things to Try When Your Student Can’t Get Started—a one-page printable with simple resets you can use when the work has ground to a halt.

Pick one. Try it. If it doesn’t work, try another.

Because sometimes getting started is the hardest part.