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Sprint 5.5: Developing Under Time

Learner produces a developed body paragraph in seven minutes, deciding the mechanism before writing rather than discovering it mid-paragraph.

6 micro-lessons

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Thirty Seconds of Thinking Buys Seven Minutes

Mechanism first, the thirty-second rule, and never a second claim.

The order that works under time

mechanism → claim → write

The mechanism is the hard part.

Do it first and the writing becomes transcription. Do it last and you are composing and thinking at once, with a clock running.

1 / 3

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Keep Going, or Change the Claim?

Six paragraphs mid-collapse, with the clock shown. Two are worth finishing.

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Five minutes left. Free transport helps society in many ways… and you cannot say why in one clause. Keep going?

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Mechanism in One Clause

Eight claims. Two have no simple mechanism.

State the mechanism for each claim in a single clause of no more than twelve words. Two of these have no simple mechanism — write no mechanism, change the claim for those.

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Fares block the lowest-paid from work. → because
Technology has transformed education fundamentally. → because
Remote work harms junior training. → because
Free transport helps society in many ways. → because
Tourism hollows out historic centres. → because
Training staff is cheaper than replacing them. → because
Longer school days would help working parents. → because
Capping rents reduces the supply of new housing. → because

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Seven Minutes

Mechanism in note form first, then the paragraph.

Write the mechanism in note form, then a body paragraph in seven minutes.

Prompt: should governments fund free childcare for pre-school children?

Box 1: the mechanism, in one clause, before you write anything else. Thirty seconds.

Box 2: set a timer for seven minutes and write one body paragraph that matches it.

If the mechanism will not come in thirty seconds, change the claim.

The mechanism, in one clause*

Twelve words at most.

Your paragraph, in seven minutes*

Written against the clock.

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The Two Checks

Sixty seconds, two checks, one paragraph.

Sixty seconds. This writer's two personal faults are claim too wide and assertion rather than support — run only those two checks over their paragraph and repair what they catch. Everything else, leave. Free childcare would help every family in the country. It is obviously one of the most important things a government can provide, and the benefits are clearly enormous. A parent on a shift that ends at six cannot collect a child at three, so without funded care they simply cannot take the job. In my city the waiting list for subsidised places runs to eleven months.

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CHECK 1 — circle all, every, always, never. How many? Which word? Narrowed: Free childcare would help in the country.

CHECK 2 — circle clearly, obviously, extremely. How many? That sentence is doing what job? The honest repair is to it, because the sentence after it already does that job.

Everything else. The mechanism in sentence 3 and the example in sentence 4 — leave or repair?

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What Did You Skip

The example or the closing — which would you drop again?

Learners can ask follow-up questions and keep the thread going.

Seven minutes is not quite enough. Something got dropped.

Was it the example, or the closing sentence?

And which would you drop again?

just now

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