The piece of blank paper was overwhelming.
One of the things I noticed when I taught preschool was that three-year-olds often froze up when they were given paper at the drawing table. Not all children at this age are starting to draw representationally and there seemed to be some kind of self-expectation that they were going to draw a masterpiece. Then when, of course, they couldn’t do this, they became really frustrated.
In the same way, most students don’t write a perfect research paper the first time their pencil comes out. And that’s just fine. That’s what the “prewriting” process is for. Once notes are taken and ideas are formed, a student can put these together in a graphic organizer. Only then does it make sense to try for a first draft.
When they construct the pieces first, then put them in an order that makes sense, students can see that a research paper can come together logically, versus just getting written out of thin air.
That would seem a little overwhelming.