Carol L. Altieri
This curriculum unit will be used as an elective five-month semester course or as a complete ten-month required course for honors, college, end basic English three and four students. It could also be adapted to coordinate with the English three, American, end English four English Literature courses. Students who elect to take the course (or if it is required) should know how to write a unified end coherent paragraph with few errors in mechanics, Punctuation, sentence structure, or usage. However, this course will emphasize the generative stage of creating ideas which the students will then be able to shape through critical and editing techniques.
Over the past decade new developments have been taking place in the teaching of writing, developments which do not constitute a revolution but are significant changes, nevertheless. Such teachers, researchers and writers as Peter Elbow, Janet Emig, Gabriele Lusser Rico, Ken Macrorie, Donald Murray, Marie Smith, and Gene Stanford (to name only a few) have developed new techniques and strategies, as well as new perspectives as to how best to improve students’ writing abilities.
One of these perspectives is that writing is best taught as a process or series of stages including prewriting, composing, proofreading and revision. As William Zinsser states in
On Writing Well
, “the new trend in writing emphasizes the process of rewriting, revising, reshaping and rewriting a piece of writing until it becomes a better product.
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But all of these editing activities presume that the student has successfully made it through the creative stage.
For some students (especially in the basic classes) writing is a very inhibiting and painful activity. The mere mention of a writing assignment strikes panic in their minds and they vehemently complain about doing it. Furthermore, not only inexperienced but also experienced writers share the fear of a blank sheet of paper, according to Donald Murray.
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Other students may write technically well, but the quality is boring and lifeless.
It seems a challenging undertaking to penetrate the barriers that have been set up; yet the quality of students’ writing should and must be improved. If sequential, stimulating and frequent writing assignments are well-planned, English teachers can make a difference in the power, depth and quality of their students’ writing. Therefore, this curriculum unit will first focus on five successful techniques which aim to help students to overcome writing obstacles and to achieve power and depth of expression in narrative and expository writing. These five techniques are as follows: making a list, freewriting, brainstorming, clustering and modeling. These techniques will be introduced during the first two weeks of the course. Then students will be encouraged to use either one technique or several throughout the program.
Writing a variety of assignments will be a natural, daily, continuous and sequential activity in a workshop classroom. Students will be directly involved in their own learning by writing every day for classwork and for homework almost every night—for the greatest progress to be made. They will read their best writings during the workshop and listen to others’ writing to evaluate and comment on. At times they will be required to exchange their first drafts for close checking by another student before second drafts are written. The workshops will be a whole-class experience for at least three of the five days a week. On other days, small group activities and individual conferences with the teacher will occur. Students will learn from themselves, each other, professional writers, and teachers by listening to, responding to and reading a variety of writings in contemporary fiction and poetry, as well as the writings of their peers. They will try to perceive others’ writing carefully, imitate the models, and cooperate as a community of writers working on challenging writing assignments.
Objectives:
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1. To teach techniques which emphasize the writing process and help overcome writing barriers.
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2. To expand students’ ability to write by providing work on various stages of the writing process and on a variety of styles.
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3. To help students achieve fluency, vividness, depth, and preciseness of expression.
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4. To stimulate students to create original prose pieces and poems which express their own life experience and are engaging to read.
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5. To have students become familiar with a variety of writings in contemporary fiction and poetry.
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6. To help students discover their own reality and their own distinct voice, through poetry and prose.
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7. To help students prepare a portfolio of their best work—revised, rewritten, arranged, titled, and polished.
In order for students to generate ideas, to warm up, and to express their thoughts, each writing activity may begin with a class discussion. The students will be guided by the teacher, who will ask pertinent questions about the topic. The questions should stimulate thought, feeling, and imagination. Students will be strongly encouraged to discuss and express the ideas they will eventually write about in a class workshop and have their ideas challenged by their classmates and teacher. This will help to provoke and sharpen their thinking.
Another approach would require students to work in pairs or in groups of four. One student in each pair or group will be the recorder, and the other or others will begin as the questioners. The writer will discuss each thought or idea before writing. The other member or members will ask questions to stimulate the writer to seek specific details and to achieve clarity. Trying out new ideas, hearing other points of view, talking with others, and expressing tentative ideas are all very useful activities during the germination stage, which may be short or long depending on the assignment. At this stage the following directions could be given to the students to get a writing launched:
Divide into small groups of three to five students each. Work together to write a paragraph following these steps:
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1. Choose a subject that everyone knows something about.
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2. Write a topic sentence about the subject, making sure it is narrow enough to be covered in one paragraph.
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3. Together make a list of details that support, explain, show, or illuminate the topic sentence.
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4. Decide on the best order for the details.
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5. Make sure all the details are relevant to the topic sentence.
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6. Write the sentences containing details.
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7. One member of the group can check the paragraph for completeness, adding more specific details if needed.
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8. Have another member check the paragraph for coherence, adding transitions and filling in gaps.
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9. Have another member of the group check the paragraph for spelling, punctuation, usage, and final form using “Composition Checklists,” a folder for evaluating writing published by Stratton-Christian press.
This assignment may be done by making a list, which is an excellent technique for starting the mind working, for stimulating thought, and for gathering raw material.
The list will provide a base for further planning and thinking about the details and topic. peter Elbow also suggests making a list of all the particulars that pertain to the topic, such as thoughts, incidents, sense impressions, examples, details and images. His directions have proved successful for many students. Give directions such as this: At this stage of the writing process write down whatever comes to your mind. Evaluating and arranging the details will come later in a tentative outline. Try not to digress, but stick to the main route. Sometimes one detail will suggest a related thought while you are following the first detail. Jot it down on the list without spending too much time on it. Then continue with your previous train of thought. Don’t waste time or energy by stopping to cross out mistakes (Elbow, p. 27). The following is a list of details and images for an assignment on writing a place description entitled “Sojourn in the City of London”:
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1. the “real and unreal city” of London
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2. Minolta camera loaded
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3. red-brick, fairy-tale like Victorian building of Dillon’s Book Store
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4. Number 46 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury
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5. Doughty Street house where Charles Dickens once lived
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6. wild London traffic and boxy-black taxicabs
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7. Bombay Brasserie smells of spices and cardamon
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8. SoHo—London’s oldest foreign community
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9. Mozart lived here for eight years
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10. Punks parading in the park
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11. Hari Krishnas in white robes playing drums
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12. Mock-tudor cottage of medieval construction
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13. Bright Christmas-looking lights
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14. Dim Sum buns and sweet and sour pork
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15. “Temporary House for Women Who Have Necessary Recommendations”
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16. Georges Inn where Charles Dickens ate and drank
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17. St. Magnus the Martyr Church.
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18. Queen Victoria Memorial in red and grey stone
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19. a dreadful slum alley where child robbers worked in the 1840’s
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20. Warm, old wood, paneled pub
