Key to Abbreviations:
-
____
Comp
.
11
—
Composition
:
Models and Exercises II
-
____
Wr. H.—
The Writer’s Handbook
-
____
H & N—
Here and Now
:
An Approach to Writing Through Perception
-
____
War
.—Warriner’s
Advanced Composition
:
A Book of Models for Writing
-
____
I. Introducing Process Approach (especially prewriting techniques)
-
____
(
Wr
.
H
., pp. 100-110)
-
1 week II. Free or Open Writing
-
____
(Teachers see Ch. 2 in
Writing to Be Read
)
-
____
III Talk-Write (in pairs)
-
____
IV. Observing, Perceiving, and Extending Awareness (in pairs and groups)
-
1 week (
H
&
N
, Chs. 1-6)
-
____
V. Using Sensory Details
-
____
(
H
&
N
, Chs. 1-6)
-
1 week VI. Description
-
____
(
War
., Ch. 1;
Comp
. 11, Lessons 6-10)
-
1 week VII. Poetry Writing
-
____
(
Wr
.
H
., pp. 181-189; Teachers see pp. 36-67 in
Writing to Be Read
)
-
1 week VIII. Paragraph Organization
-
____
Types: Introductory, developmental, transitional, and concluding.
-
____
Structures: Chronological, spatial, associational, inductive, deductive, pro/con.
-
____
(
Wr H
., pp. 192-202)
-
1 week IX. Revealing a Person
-
____
(
H
&
N
, Chs. 6, 8, and 9)
-
1 week X. Reliving a Past Experience
-
____
(
H
&
N
, Ch. 13; Teachers see Ch. 9 in
Writing to Be Read
)
-
1 week XI. Narration
-
____
(
War
., Chs. 10-12;
Comp
.
11
, Lessons 11-16;
Wr
.
H
., pp. 115-119.
-
1 week XII. Defining and Explaining a Process
-
____
(
Wr
.
H
., pp. 126-130 and pp. 120-122;
War
., Chs 3 & 4;
Comp
.
11
, Lesson 19)
-
____
XIII. Comparing and Contrasting
-
____
(
Wr
.
H
., pp. 130-134;
Comp 11
, Lesson 20;
-
1 week Teachers see Ch. 16 in
Writing to Be Read
)
-
____
XIV. Cause and Effect
-
____
(
Wr
.
H
., pp. 134-139)
-
1 week XV. Paraphrasing, Summarizing, and Précis Writing
-
____
(Teachers see pp. 241-246 in
Writing to Be Read
)
-
2 weeks XVI. Persuasion
-
____
(
War
., Ch. 6;
Comp
.
11
, Lessons 23-27;
Wr
.
H
., pp. 140-161)
-
2 weeks XVII. Analyzing (customs, goals, institutions, possessions, experiences, people, and literature)
-
____
(
H
&
N
, Chs. 7-8 and 10-12; War., Ch. 5;
Comp
.
11
, Lessons 18, 28, and 29;
Wr
.
H
., pp. 122-126; Teachers see p. 178 in
Writing to Be Read
)
-
2 weeks XVIII. Informal Essays, Articles, Reviews, and Interviews (
War
., Ch. 9;
Wr
.
H
., pp. 161-168; Teachers see Ch. 12 in
Writing to Be Read
)
-
2 weeks XIX. Humor and Satire
-
3 weeks XX. Independent Work in Groups (choose from short story, poetry, humor and satire, etc.)
-
22 weeks
Sample Assignments for II. “Free” Writing*
-
Writing One: Write for ten minutes as fast as you can, never stopping to ponder a thought. Put down whatever comes to your mind. If nothing comes, write, “Nothing comes to my mind” until you get started. Or look in front of you or out the window and begin describing whatever you see. Let yourself wander to any subject, feeling, or idea, but keep writing. When ten minutes is up, you should have filled a . . . page . . . [with] practice shots.
-
Writing Two: Write three or more of these absolutely free writings. Choose times when no one will disturb you, before breakfast or late at night perhaps. Go beyond ten minutes if the river keeps flowing. But don’t expect anything. You’re just warming up. Maybe none of your ten-minute writings will produce an interesting sentence. Don’t worry. Write. And don’t think about punctuation or grammar or style. Put down one word as a sentence if you wish. Maybe your writing will be completely uninteresting to others. As long as you are trying to write honestly and you are writing fast and steadily to fill up a page or two without stopping, you are practicing.
-
Writing Three: Now try free writing with more purpose. Stay on one subject as the [quoted] writer . . . did . . . But if you find that subject takes your mind off to another related subject, let yourself go to that.
-
____
The one necessity in such practice is that you keep writing freely and quickly.
-
Writing Four: Write freely for twenty or thirty minutes about something or somebody you stumbled upon once. Let yourself record the lumps and grooves, the dents and spikes.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
* from Ken Macrorie,
Writing to Be Read
(New York; Hayden Book Co., 1968), Ch. 2.
Sample Assignment for III. Talk-Write (in pairs)
Talk-Write*
Objectives:
-
A. To show students how they can use their talking skills to improve their writing.
-
B. To introduce the idea of having students write publicly for their peers.
-
C. To introduce the idea of having students use each other as resources.
Process:
-
A. Give an assignment like: “Think back to the places you have lived; now think of your favorite of those places; now think of your favorite room inside or spot outside that place; now describe that room or spot. Your composition (or paragraph) should try to incorporate all of the senses.”
-
B. One student in each pair will begin as writer, using a marker or pen and newsprint, and the other will begin as questioner. The writing student will talk out each sentence before writing. When the sentence is written, the teammate may ask questions to encourage the writer, to seek clarification, and to draw out more details.
-
C. Then the teammates will switch roles.
* adapted from Vincent Wixon and Pat Stone, “Getting It Out, Getting It Down: Adapting Zoellner’s Talk-Write,”
English Journal
66 (September, 1977), 70-73.
Sample Assignment for V. Using Sensory Details
Sense Experience*
Objectives:
-
A. To concertize sense experience for students.
-
B. To focus on the importance of firsthand sense experience and to encourage the use of specific sense experience in writing.
-
C. To encourage students to see, touch, and hear things as as group and to talk about sight, taste, touch, smell, and sound.
Process:
-
A. Have groups list visual features of what they see inside the room.
-
B. Have groups discuss the tactile qualities of what they see.
-
C. Have the students study individuals carefully and report what they see; often they will see things they have never noticed before about their classmates.
-
D. Have all the students close their eyes and listen silently for one minute; then have them list individually and then share with each other all the sounds they heard.
-
E. Have students close their eyes again and pass around objects with a range of odors to smell; ask them to try to define what they are smelling.
-
F. Pass around things to taste and have students try to define what they are tasting.
-
G. Then have the students individually write a descriptive paragraph that appeals concretely and specifically to one of the senses.
* adapted from Carl Koch and James M. Brazil,
Strategies for Teaching the Composition Process
(Urbana, Ill.: NCTE, 1978), pp. 51-52.
Sample Assignment: VI. Description
Objectives:
-
A. To have students incorporate sensory details into an essay of description.
-
B. To show students how to brainstorm details and then select those details which have something in common.
Process:
-
A. Have students think of a particular place with which they are very familiar and list 25 specific details of that particular place, using all of their senses.
-
B. Have students select about 10 details from the list which contribute to a certain mood and incorporate then into a description of the place.
Sample Assignment: VI. Description
-
Objectives:
-
A. To have students incorporate sensory details into an essay of description.
-
B. To have students make selections within a structured assignment.
Process:.
-
A. Ask students to select a certain month or a certain season about which they have very strong (good or bad) feelings or impressions.
-
B. Ask them to write a thesis or attitude statement about their season or month.
-
C. Ask them to write a descriptive essay (using a tone appropriate to their attitude and audience) about their month or season, using specific, sensory details and images.
Sample Assignment for XI. Narration
Self-Disclosure*
Objectives:
-
A. To help students delve into their experiences for narrative writing material.
-
B. To continue working on a foundation for openness in small groups.
Process:
-
A. Read the following instructions: “With a marker or pen, divide a sheet of newsprint into six spaces. In space number one, draw a symbol of the most significant event in the first half of your life; in space two, a symbol of the most important event in the second half of your life; in space three, the most significant event in the last year; in space four, that situation, activity, or experience which you currently find most difficult or frustrating in space five, that emotion which you find most difficult to express; and in space six, what you would do if you knew you had but three years to live and could do whatever you wanted.”
-
B. When the students have finished drawing their symbols, read: “Now that you have finished drawing your posters, select one member of your group whom you want to know better. With this other person, find a separate place to share your posters. Taking turns, explain each symbol to your partner. Be sure to listen very closely to your partner because you will be asked later to explain his or her poster to the entire small group.”
-
C. When all pairs are finished sharing, read: “Now move back into your small groups. In turn, each person should carefully explain the poster of his or her partner to the rest of the small group. If the person explaining gets stuck, his or her partner may help out.”
-
D. The instructor should point out that poster spaces one, two, and three are especially pertinent to narrative writing, but that any section of the poster could be used as subject matter for a narrative.
-
____
(Outlines, notes, or paragraphs could be used instead of symbols in each poster space.)
-
-
-
* adapted from Carl Koch and James M. Brazil,
Strategies for Teaching the Composition Process
(Urbana, Ill.: NCTE, 1978), pp. 40-43.
Sample Assignment for XI. Narration
-
A Personal Road Map*
Objectives:
-
A. To help students discover significant personal experiences for narrative writing.
-
B. To encourage group and class cohesiveness and group sharing of experiences.
Processes:
-
A. After small groups are formed, the instructor asks the students to place a B (for birth) in the bottom left corner of a sheet of newsprint and a P (for the present) in the top right corner of the sheet.
-
B. The instructor tells the students to think back across their lives to their birth and to draw a “road” (a line) from the B to the P that represents the course of their lives. It may be a straight line, a wavy line, a line that runs in circles, a line that has many detours, a line that has many dead ends, etc.
-
C. The instructor asks students to place little drawings or pictures along the road to symbolize any experience—either good or bad, important or unimportant—that they remember from their lives.
-
D. Then students who are willing should be encouraged to explain their maps to their small groups.
-
E. The instructor should point out that these symbols (and more can be added later as new memories are recalled) represent excellent topics for narrative writing.
* adapted from Carl Koch and James M. Brazil,
Strategies for Teaching the Composition Process
(Urbana, Ill.: NCTE, 1978), pp. 38-39.
Sample Questions: XVII. Analyzing (Literature)
Questions to Help Students Analyze a Poem
-
I. Speaker and situation
-
____
A. Who is the speaker? What kind of person is he?
-
____
B. To whom is the speaker speaking? What kind of person is the person being addressed?
-
____
C. What is the occasion of situation of the poem?
-
____
D. What is the setting (time and place)?
-
II. Poet’s purpose
-
____
A. What is the central idea or theme of the poem?
-
____
B. What is the poet’s purpose?
-
____
____
to tell a story?
-
____
____
to create a picture in the mind?
-
____
____
to tell how he/she feels about some experience?
-
____
____
to impart new insight into human life?
-
____
C. What exactly does the poem say, and what does it suggest?
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____
D. Why does the poem have the title it does?
-
III. Tone, need, feeling
-
____
A. Based on the precise wording of the poem, what may have happened in the mind, the heart, and the senses of the poet which impelled him/her to write this poem?
-
____
B. What is the need or feeling or tone of this poem?
-
____
C. By what means is it conveyed?
-
IV. Technique
-
____
A. Development
-
____
____
1. What is the form or pattern of this poem?
-
____
____
2. How is the form important in relation to the meaning?
-
____
____
3. What are the parts or steps in the development of thought and emotion?
-
____
____
4. If there are stanzas, what structure is found within the stanzas? How does this help to organize the thought?
-
____
B. Language
-
____
____
1. Do you find any words particularly well-chosen?
-
____
____
2. What sensory appeals are used and how?
-
____
____
3. Is there a central image which unites the entire poem?
-
____
____
4. What kinds of imagery are used, and why?
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____
____
5. Point out and explain any examples of symbols, allusions, paradox, irony, overstatement, and understatement.
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____
____
6. Point out examples of sound repetition, and explain their function.
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V. Evaluation
-
____
A. Is the poet conveying an experience which is worth conveying?
-
____
B. Is the emotion appropriate for the experience?
-
____
C. Are the poetic techniques useful in supporting the poet’s air, or are they merely ornamental?
-
____
D. Has the poet succeeded in communicating his need or his insight?
Sample Questions: XVII. Analyzing (Literature)
Questions to Help Students Analyze an Essay
-
I. Determining the meaning of the essay.
-
____
A. What is the thesis (main point) of the essay?
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____
____
1. Is it stated in a sentence or two at the beginning or at the end?
-
____
____
2. If it is not specifically stated, is it implied? (Consider title, topics of paragraphs, general subject, relevance of illustrations, statistics, and other means of developing and substantiating opinions.)
-
____
B. What is the nature of the essay?
-
____
____
1. Is it an explanation, a description, or an argument? Is it a narrative?
-
____
____
2. Is it objective or subjective, or a combination of both? (Does it appeal mainly to your mind or to your emotions, or to both?)
-
II. Study the author’s writing techniques.
-
____
A. What is the structure (organization) of the essay?
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____
____
1. How is the discussion begun? How much is introductory?
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____
____
2. Which paragraphs make up the development of the thesis?
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____
____
3. What does the author conclude? (Is his conclusion in a separate summarizing paragraph?)
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____
____
4. Is the conclusion logical?
-
____
B. What are the characteristics of the author’s style?
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____
____
1. Does he/she use metaphors, similes, analogies, personification, or other figures of speech?
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____
____
2. Does he/she use alliteration, repetition of words or phrases, allusion, or word play?
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____
____
3. Does he/she use overstatement, understatement, paradox, etc?
-
____
____
4. Does he/she use complicated or simple diction?
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____
____
5. Does he/she use slang or jargon?
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____
____
6. Are his sentences varied in length and structure?
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____
____
7. Are there patterns, rhythms, or balance in the sentences?
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____
____
8. What is the order of the sentences (and paragraphs)?
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____
____
9. How is the emphasis achieved?
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____
____
10. What kinds of transitions or cohesive devices are used?
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____
____
11. Is the tone sarcastic, angry, witty, humorous, etc.?
-
III. Summarize your evaluation of the essay.
-
____
A. Is the thesis (main idea) clear?
-
____
B. Is the essay unified and well-organized?
-
____
C. If it is a descriptive essay, do you consider the description effective?
-
____
D. If it is an argument, how sound is it? (Consider the kind and amount of evidence presented.)
-
____
E. If it is an explanation, is it to the point, clear, and adequate?
-
____
F. What is the outstanding quality of the essay?
Exercises for Certain Skills (to be used by individuals or whole class)
from
Composition
:
Models and Exercises 11
: (exercises calling for sentence rewrites and sentence combining)
adjective clauses, p. 80
participial phrases, p. 81
variety in sentence beginnings, p. 83
variety in sentence lengths, p. 84
coordination, p. 126
subordination, p. 128
parallelism, p. 182
position of modifiers, pp. 183, 228
passive voice, p. 179
eliminating unnecessary words, p. 181
repetition for emphasis, p. 229
from
The Writer’s Handbook
Usage Glossary, pp. 8-97, should be useful for students
dangling modifiers, p. 242
parallelism, p. 248
possessive form of nouns and pronouns before gerunds, p. 249
quotation marks, p. 250
compounding, pp. 203-205
embedding, pp. 205-208
rearranging order of sentence, pp. 208-210
word choice (economy, accuracy, appropriateness), pp. 211-215
(Teachers also see Ch. 4 in
Writing to be Read
)
Appendix A: Stages of the Composition Process*
Prewriting
-
1. Experiencing
|
2. Discovering
|
3. Making Formal Choices
|
|
Our response to
|
Identifying
|
Selecting a form for
|
|
someone or some
|
a topic and
|
the essay and a form
|
|
thing, leading
|
an audience.
|
of organization.
|
|
to a desire to
|
|
communicate.
|
Writing
-
4. Forming
|
5. Making Language
|
6. Languaging Choices
|
|
Arranging essay
|
Selecting language
|
The process of carrying
|
|
materials in line
|
appropriate to
|
out the language Choices.
|
|
with choices in
|
one’s purpose and
|
|
step three; or,
|
audience.
|
|
in an opinion es-
|
|
say, writing a
|
|
clear thesis state-
|
|
ment to begin the
|
|
essay.
|
Postwriting
-
7. Criticizing
|
8. Proofreading
|
|
Evaluation of the essay to
|
How does the essay meet
|
|
determine if it reflects the choices
|
the external standards
|
|
made earlier in the composition pro
|
of one’s audience: form,
|
|
cess.
|
|
punctuation, neatness,
|
|
|
|
spelling, etc.?
|
* from Carl Koch and James M. Brazil,
Strategies for Teaching the Composition Process
(Urbana, Ill., 1978), p. xi.
Appendix B: Guidelines for Peer Criticism Procedure*
1. Reading.
-
Go over the paper twice if necessary, but don’t write any responses yet. After the silent reading, the author will read the essay aloud.
2. Spoken feedback.
-
Talk to the author. Tell him or her about the good things in the paper, the parts you especially liked. Be supportive. There is nothing really
bad
about any piece of writing, only parts which may not make sense to other people.
-
Talk to each other. Do your perceptions of the author’s message and its expression square with your fellow students’ responses? Will another reading bring you closer together?
-
Listen to the author. There may be parts he was wondering about himself and now that he has a captive audience he can ask you if you have understood his point.
-
Make any marginal notations that occur to you during the discussion.
3. Written feedback.
-
Stop talking. The author needs a written record to remember all your comments. Expand your marginal notes and on the last page write some general observations about the
whole
essay. Your larger view of the paper will be more helpful to the author than the spelling or punctuation errors you’ve noted.
* from Thom Hawkins,
Group Inquiry Techniques for Teaching Writing
(Urbana, Ill.: NCTE and ERIC, 1976), pp. 29-30.
Appendix C: Evaluation of Our Group Performance*
Instructor’s Name _______________ Course & Section __________
Quarter/Year __________ Your Major __________ Your Status _____
Most conventional instructor evaluation forms emphasize traditional teaching models (lecture, discussion) and place little responsibility on the student for either the structure of the course or the classroom atmosphere. In order to supplement the standard form, I would like your evaluation of teacher-student roles in group taught, discovery-based classrooms such as ours.
-
A. How would you rate the overall effectiveness of the group teaching approach? (Circle one)
-
____
Excellent Good Average Fair Poor
-
B. Rate the following questions on a scale of 1 to 5 as follows:
|
5
|
4
|
3
|
2
|
1
|
|
Nearly Always Most of the Time Sometimes Rarely Almost Never
|
|
a. How often did you talk with your group? _____
|
|
b. How often did they listen to you?
|
|
c. How often did you listen to them?
|
|
d. Were the group tasks clearly defined by the instructor and did you understand their purpose?
|
|
e. Did the tasks fit your needs and interests?
|
|
f. Did the instructor listen attentively to you and others?
|
|
g. Did you feel intimidated during his/her presence in your group?
|
|
h. Did he/she dominate group discussion?
|
|
i. Do you feel that he/she asked stimulating questions during group time?
|
|
j. Were his/her summaries of student work brief and accurate?
|
|
k. Did he/she allow a variety of responses?
|
|
l. When you reported on your group’s discoveries, did you speak to your peers in the larger class and did they respond to you?
|
-
C. What percentage of your learning in this course do you attribute to the efforts of: Yourself _____ % Your Peers _____ % Your Instructor _____
-
D. Please write a brief comment on what you see as the role of the instructor in this class.
* from Thom Hawkins,
Group Inquiry Techniques for Teaching Writing
(Urbana, Ill.: NCTE and ERIC, 1976), p. 39.
Appendix D: A Sample Form for Student Self-Evaluation*
(figure available in print form)
*from Carol Laque and Phyllis Sherwood,
A Laboratory Approach to Writing
(Urbana, Ill.: NCTE, 1977), p. 87.
Appendix E: A Sample Form for Student Evaluation of Writing Assignments*
(figure available in print form)
*from Carol Laque and Phyllis Sherwood,
A Laboratory Approach to Writing
(Urbana, Ill.: NCTE, 1977), p. 87.