Carol L. Altieri
Assignment: Using the listing technique to generate ideas, write a description from memory that expresses the feeling of a particular place. What does it feel like to visit a new city? or to visit someone in the country?
What did it feel like to visit your grandmother? What did it feel like when you spent a day at the beach? What was it like when you went on vacation? This is a description of a place that should give a dominant impression or evoke a single mood from your own memory. Let the mood give your story its unity. Capture the mood for your reader by the use of images of sight, sound, smell, taste, and feelings. Following is the homework that will help to inspire the assignment.
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Reading:
In the Stories of John Cheever
, “O City of
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Broken Dreams,” p. 42. Notice the imagery and mood Cheever evokes.
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In
Cathedral
by Raymond Carver, “Chef’s House,” p. 27.
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In
Story and Structure
, “Clay” by James Joyce, p. 448.
Notice the imagery of sound and sense, the association between place, character and mood.
Making a list of details, images and sense impressions helps the writer to use vivid specifics, instead of inexplicit generalities, according to Donald Murray. He suggests that the teacher may demonstrate to students the way to make a list of vivid specifics related to a writing assignment (Murray, p. 43). The teacher will request the class to participate in selecting the specifics for the description. Then the students can choose the details which will make an effective description. Therefore, the students learn to gather material for a prose piece, poem, or vignette which will be deep, not superficial. Effective writing shows, rather than tells, a great deal about a narrow subject. I will read an example of a paper I wrote on “Sojourn in the City of London” and show slides of England to provide inspiration for students to do their own description of a place.
Freewriting, the second useful technique, is simply an exercise in daydreaming or freethinking while writing without stopping.3 The first goal a writer strives for is to find something to write about. The practice of freewriting helps generate ideas and helps the writer to see them. In addition, it helps to get the chaotic flux of thoughts out of the writer’s head and onto paper. Also, freewriting helps the writer to observe his experiences more perceptively and improve his verbal ability (Schor pp. 7-9). Finally, Peter Elbow states that freewriting helps release feelings of depression, unhappiness and tension, thus conditioning a student better for the writing process.
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The following directions proved to be the most promising for students.
Explain to the class: Write for fifteen minutes about anything you’re interested in. Do not pause to look back, to cross out or erase something, to think about how to spell a word, or to think about what to say next. If you can’t think of a word or spelling first, omit it and keep writing. Spill out whatever is on your mind. If your mind goes blank, write: “I am looking for something to say” or “nothing comes to my mind” until you can think of something. Don’t feel inhibited. Look around you and write down what you observe. Let your mind wander off the topic if that is where it wants to go, but continue to write non-stop. Do not stop writing until you hear the timer ring. Keep your freewriting exercises. Later read them to see if they can be revised into a better work (Macrorie, pp. 8-13).
Further explain to the class: Next do at least three of these freewritings for fifteen minutes for each day—during the morning, during the afternoon, or in the evening. Don’t feel inhibited. Don’t worry about punctuation, grammar, or the right word. Try, however, to write quickly, honestly, and freely. Then try focused freewriting. Remain with one of the following subjects for twenty minutes: men, women, high school, television programs, art exhibits or material possessions. Let the writing take its own course or let it follow your mind wherever it goes. Continue to write freely and honestly. Finally, write freely for a half an hour about something you were surprised or disappointed about. Write down everything you can remember about the experience (Macrorie, pp. 9-15). Similarly, peter Elbow in
Writing
With
power
recommends: Separate the creating and the criticizing process so they don’t interfere with each other. First write freely and uncritically in order to generate as many words and ideas as possible; then turn around and adopt a critical frame of mind and thoroughly revise what you have written (Elbow, p. 7). To repeat, freewriting separates the intuitive creative process from the criticizing process and helps the writer think about his subject. It is a fruitful way of helping students use their powers of imagination, observation, language, and creativity (Elbow, pp. 13-15).
The third useful technique for producing ideas and details and for achieving fluency is brainstorming. With this approach students launch a writing assignment by being asked or by asking themselves probing questions about their topics. Such questions include the following:
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1. Who is the story about? Who else is involved? What can you tell about the person or people?
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2. What is happening? List your ideas about the happening.
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3. When did this take place? Does the time matter? Could it happen today?
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4. Where did it take place? Does the place matter? Could it happen here?
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5. Why did it happen? Do you know why it happened? If not, can you guess? [All of the above questions were adapted from one source.]
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6. What attitude should you take toward your subject?
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7. What are some specific details you can use to support your topic?
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8. What would be the best order for your ideas?
Sometimes a rough outline can follow brainstorming, freewriting, or jotting down a list. Also, a student can use several techniques together when writing a paper.
The student should use the technique that works best for him. All of the five techniques will be introduced in the first three weeks of the course. 1 will spend several class periods on each technique—depending upon how appropriate it seems for a particular assignment. Then the most effective techniques such as brainstorming, clustering and modeling will be used throughout the program.
Some writers write more effectively if careful specific guidelines are spelled out for them. For this purpose, Walter Lamberg suggests a writing assignment that uses the brainstorming technique to accumulate material for a topic:
Write a narrative about an interesting incident that happened in less than one day. Include all the details that answer these questions: What was it about? What happened? Whom did it happen to? Who else was involved? Why did it happen? When did it happen? Where did it happen? Try to write as much as you can, at least one page.
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With the brainstorming approach the teacher’s role is to encourage the students to dig deeply for relevant information, either from their own life experiences or from their reading. During this phase of the process, the teacher should arrange conferences with each student to provide guidelines for him to follow. Eventually, the teacher should aim for the students to become increasingly independent. Thus the students could engage in the process by themselves. Some additional, surefire, practical applications of the brainstorming technique are suggested by the following:
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1. Write a missing person’s description of the student sitting behind you.
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What is his/her height?
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What is his/her weight?
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What color hair does he/she have?
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What color eyes does he/she have?
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Does he/she wear glasses? What kind?
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What kind of clothing does this person have on?
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What colors are his/her clothing?
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Does he/she have any special features or identifying marks?
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2. A newspaper reporter wants to interview you as a typical student having a typical schoolday. The interviewer wants to know everything you did on this day, and everyone you saw or spoke to since you came to school this morning. Write a list of every detail you have seen or done on this day.
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3. You have just seen an automobile accident. Both cars are badly damaged. The people involved are injured. Write an accident report for the police station or insurance company. Include the following:
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What time of day did the accident occur?
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What were the road conditions?
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Did the two drivers follow the traffic signs and lights?
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What direction was each car traveling?
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How did the accident happen?
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In what order did each thing happen to them?
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Clustering, the fourth technique to launch writing and to tap the “secret reserves of imaginative power” has aroused much enthusiasm among writing teachers. It is similar to brainstorming in that it uses free-association. In
Writing the Natural Way
by Gabriele Lusser Rico, the technique is precisely and clearly explained with many valuable examples. Clustering makes use of the imaginative mind at first and the critical, logical mind later in the process. It helps to reduce anxiety and encourages the free expression and sense of wonder of childhood (Rico, pp. 29-46). A nucleus or kernel word or short phrase provides a stimulus for releasing word and phrase associations from the creative mind in a short period of time. The stimulus kernel word “connects, associates, suggests and evokes” other impressions, ideas, words, phrases and images, which result in the original voice of each individual doing the clustering (Rico, p. 33). For this clustering assignment students should read the following: