What killed the cat?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 11:48:22 EDT

[err...those of you who are sensitive to such things, there do be some misuse and other contrary squeezing of meanings in the following wordplay. I apologize for any confusion that results, but it does tickle me little fingers when I have a chance to tease the words like this...gitchy-goo!]

(St. Martin's Guide to Teaching Writing, p. 75...)

"This exercise might get your students thinking about what makes them curious:

1. Brainstorm a list of things about which you know something but would like to know more. Brainstorm for five minutes, making the list as long as you can. Whenever possible, be specific, but don't censor yourself.

2. Take another five minutes, and brainstorm a list of things about which you don't know much but would like to know more. Write down whatever comes to mind.

3. Look at both lists, and circle one item you'd like to look at more closely, that piques your curiosity more than the others.

4. Now take another five minutes and build a list of questions about that circled item you'd like to learn the answers to. If that circled topic goes nowhere, try another.

(curiouser and curiouser! Now to add a twist a la tink)

So now we have a topic and a list of questions...let us assume that we have a champion in mind (character! Please, good writer, a character in mind and body, ready to leap into action:-). In what situation might our champion want to answer these questions? Can you imagine the answer to the question of just how toothpaste does get in the tube being important, even critical? When would the details of the process of turning feline intestines into violin bows be so vitally intriguing that our champion would dare question reference librarians, struggle with the guide to popular literature, even settle down and read?

5. Take five minutes and brainstorm situations, crises, cliffhangers, and so forth that would make the answers to your questions important. Hang a life on whether firemen wear pajamas or not!

And, the coupe de ville:

6. Take five minutes and brainstorm answers. Wild, wooly, and possibly true. Do you suppose the peaches could get in the wine by putting the wine bottle over the flower? What kind of underwear did a knight in shining armor wear, anyway?

(oh, okay, if you really want to, you can find some facts here and there to mix in with the factoids, fictoids, and pure and simply untrue wanderings of your loosened id. Just don't get too tide up in those moon borne wisps of reality.)

Put it all together! A champion, puzzled by the weird and tweaky enigmatica, riddlicuousities, and down-to-sky paradoctors of your imagining, struggles to learn the answers...shifting fact from friction, they discover...you tell us!

Short starts? Get on your blocks, ready, set...

"He wasn't really your father, you know," she said, and pushed the remote control, skipping wildly through the channels.

WRITE!

(They're off, with keyboards in the lead, but pens and pencils are catching up, and those crayola kids are making a rainbow cross the race. Why? To get to the pot of gold, off coarse!)

Teaching Writing (Part 3?)

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 14:51:14 EDT

[with all due respect to St. Martin's Guide to Teaching Writing, Second Edition, by Robert Connors and Cheryl Glenn, ISBN: 0-312-06787-9...]

Page 63 and forward has an interesting section on "Successful Writing Assignments." In terms of the sequence of assignments, they mention Alexander Bain, a Scottish logician, who divided writing into "modes of discourse: narration, description, exposition, and argumentation." They also point out James Moffett's "highly schematic representation of the whole spectrum of discourse" moving from "interior dialogue" to "conversation," "correspondence,""public narrative," and "public generalization or inference." James Kinneavy provides the notion of increasingly complex communicative acts, moving from expressive discourse to reference/informative, literary, and persuasive discourse.

"One way to structure a composition course is around the four sources of information that feed nonfiction writing: memory, observation, interviews, and research. Students first look within themselves for material and progressively cast a wider net...It's [research] not just going to the library and reading books and articles, but rather using a growing grasp of all other sorts of writing and planning skills to build to a new kind of complexity." (p. 65)

1. Pick one "nugget of information" from memory, one from "observation", and one from interviews or research. Three nuggets, please? Write them down...

2. Pick a number from one to seven. You may use dice...you decide how to wrap six sides around seven numbers:-)

>From page 66, a list of the most commonly used strategy terms:

1. Analyze: divide an event, idea, or theory into its component elements and examine each in turn.

2. Compare and/or Contrast: demonstrate similarities or dissimilarities between two or more events or topics.

3. Define: identify and state the essential traits or characteristics of something, differentiating them clearly from other things.

4. Describe: tell about an event, person, or process in detail creating a clear and vivid image of it.

5. Evaluate: assess the value or significance of the topic.

6. Explain: make a topic as clear and understandable as possible by offering reasons, examples, etc.

7. Summarize: state the major points concisely and comprehensively.

(yes! take your selected strategy, your three nuggets of information, and rock and rol...err, ponder and scribble! You may also consider:)

A good assignment has a purpose. It is meaningful within your experience. It asks for writing about specific, immediate situations rather than abstract and theoretical ones. It suggests a single major question to which the thesis of the response is the answer.

Single sentence starter...

"I'd rather eat cake," he said, and bit into it.

[tock, tick, tock, tick, the clock counts down, the keys strike home, press return and there goes the post...]

Teaching Writing (Part 1)

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: Fri, 31 May 1996 22:01:33 EDT

Due to the fact that it was on sale, I'm going to spend a little time wandering through the pages of The St. Martin's Guide to Teaching Writing, Second Edition, by Robert Connors and Cheryl Glenn, ISBN 0-312-06787-9. Please give them the credit for the good ideas here, and I'll take the heat for the goofy stuff.

Skipping rapidly past the parts on getting ready for the first class, living through the first few days of teaching, and through most of the section on everyday activities (all good, but we must make haste)...

on page 59 (in Assigning Tasks to Groups), we find:

"The following list of questions compiled by Mary Beaven provides a general structure for student critiques:

1. Identify the best section of the composition and describe what makes it effective.
2. Identify a sentence, a group of sentences, or a paragraph that needs revision, and revise it as a group, writing the final version on the back of the paper.
3. Identify one or two things the writer can do to improve his or her next piece of writing. Write these goals on the first page at the top.
4. (After the first evaluation, the following question should come first.) What were the goals the writer was working on? Were they reached? If not, identify those passages that need improvement and as a group revise those sections, writing final versions on the back of the paper. If revisions are necessary, set up the same goals for the next paper and delete question."

So, in our terms, this week's exercise is a critique! Take one piece by someone (even your own work) and:

1. Identify the best part of the piece and describe what makes it work.
2. Identify one part of the piece that could be revised, and write out a possible revision to show what you think would be better.
3. Identify one or two things the writer can try that you think might improve their next piece.
4. Identify what you think the writer was trying to do with this piece (what were the author's goals?) Do you think they succeeded? If not, identify what needs to change to reach those goals and write out at least one alternative that shows how you think the piece could be improved.

[psst? Don't give up, after a couple more bits on critiquing, we'll get to Emig's cognitive research, Moffett's continua of subject and audience, social constructionism, and a whole sheaf of other pinpricks, including something about Kenneth Burke and the Pentad, tagmemic invention, and other incoherences. So stick around and watch this space for other grindings from the mill of the writers.]

Single Sentence Start?

"Why didn't you buy it?" he said, and pulled the line.

What line? What happens when someone pulls the line? And who is he talking to, what didn't they buy, let the little gray cells agitate and spin dry, hear them fry in the crackling grease of your terrible hot pan?

Write!