Prewriting Strategies

Pre-Writing Exercises

Getting Started

·        Think right:  believe in yourself and ability to learn; keep trying and learn from mistakes

·        Get organized

–       Use a notebook:  keep track of handouts and assignments

–       Take notes:  notes help you to retain important information and stay focused; write down whatever your teacher writes on the board and specific information about assignments.

–       Schedule study time:  don’t leave assignments to the last minute; schedule regular time

–       Use good resources:  teachers, books, on-line sources, classmates

           

First Steps to Writing

·        Understanding the assignment

–       Make sure you are clear on requirements:

Due Date

Length

Format of paper

Topic restrictions

·        Narrowing the topic

–       Find an area of the topic that you can write about

–       Narrowing tree to divide a general topic or subject into more specific parts until you find a specific topic of interest

–       Brainstorming by thinking of the aspects of the topic or of specific examples and writing down all the ideas that come to mind (can be done in a group)

·        Determining the writing context

–       Purpose:  why are you writing, what your goals are, and what you hope to accomplish; what to include and what to leave out; most writing is to inform, to persuade, or to entertain.

–       Audience:  tailor your statements to the person or group to whom you are speaking; keep in mind your audience’s interests, concerns, values, educational backgrounds, and attitudes.

–       Tone:  the writer’s attitude toward the subject or audience; can range from serious, sarcastic, angry, humorous, condescending, insensitive, compassionate, etc.

·        Formulating a main idea:  think about the direction you might be heading in or what you might write about; stating a tentative main idea will help you generate ideas about your narrowed topic more effectively.

Generating Supporting Ideas

·        Brainstorming:  write down everything you think of regarding this topic; be aware of all the senses; can be done in phrases; can be done individually or in a group

·        Freewriting:  start writing sentences and paragraphs; write everything that comes to mind

·        Listing:  visualize and write what comes to mind;

·        Clustering/ Mind map:  cluster related ideas together; group or organize ideas

·        Dividing:  break the topic into its components; use journalistic questions (who, what, where, when, why how)

Organizing Ideas

·        State the main idea:  narrow your topic into a thesis statement; sometimes this will need to be revised as you gather materials

·        Map your topic:  Use the a table similar to the one below the develop your ideas

Supporting Ideas	Specific Details	Relation to Thesis

·        Outline:  use the formal outline structure to help organize topics of support and subtopics.  The outline below is an example of style.

I.  Introduction

            A.  Specifics

            B.  Specifics 

II.  Suppporting idea #1

            A.  Specifics

            B.  Specifics

                        1.  Details

                        2.  More details

III.  Supporting idea #2

            A.  Specifics

                        1.  Details

                        2.  More details

            B.  Specifics

IV.  Conclusion

Observation Report

Observation Essay

Definition

In an Observation (or Descriptive) Essay, the writer paints a word picture of a person, place, object, or event that appeals to one or more of the five senses (smell, taste, hearing, touch, and sight).  In this kind of essay, the writer works to give a clear representation of the object of his close observation.

Organization of an Observation Essay

Descriptions can be organized spatially (left to right, top to bottom); chronologically (in time order); or in order of importance (the thing that strikes you firs or that is dominant about what you are describing).

Thesis Statements

The thesis statement generally presents the subject of the description and/or established the tone or mood of the description.  It controls what details you will include.

Tips on Writing

–   Have a purpose in mind for the description of your observation.  Are you trying to be objective, or are you trying to convey an attitude, opinion, or mood?

–   If you are describing a person, try to help the reader see the person and his or her character by describing appearance, dress, mannerisms, actions, and/or speech.  Descriptive details can be used to suggest personality or character.

–   If you are describing a place, scene or activity, you will need to select a physical perspective or viewpoint on the subject and stick to it.  Your perspective might be from a particular position, time, season, etc.

–   If you are describing an object, try to help the reader see the object and its meaning to you.  Rely on the five senses to evoke the physical appearance and emotional association of the object.

–   Do you have an emotional perspective of attitude toward your subject?  Keep it in mind as you select the words to describe the details.

Pitfalls

–   Avoid disorganized descriptions.  If your description is haphazard, you will confuse your reader.

–   Avoid inconsistent descriptions.  Don’t mix positive and negative perspectives; also don’t mix descriptions for varying viewpoints.

–   Avoid generalizations and abstractions.  You want to recreate a specific person, place or event for your readers.  Give specific information.

Essay Guidelines

–   Due dates:  Rough Draft due September 5; Final Draft due September 19

–   Essay length:  200 – 300 words (about 1 page)

–   Rough drafts can be typed or hand-written, but must be double-spaced.

–   Final draft format:

–   Typed (if this is not possible, please let me know)

–   1 inch margins

–   Name and date on the upper right hand corner

–   Number the pages on the lower right hand corner

–   Title centered above the text of the essay

Writer's SourceBank

Writer’s SourceBank

To think like a writer, you should act like one and develop your own “SourceBank” of possible writing topics.  Be alert for writing ideas you find unexpectedly as you go about your day-to-day life.  Writers often carry small pocket notebooks to capture images and ideas they happen upon.  In the table below, write ideas, topics, themes, issues, current events or anything else that comes to mind as possible writing activities.

Week 1	Week 2	Week 3
Week 4	Week 5	Week 6
Week 7	Week 8	Week 9
Week 10	Week 11	Week 12
Week 13	Week 14	Week 15

Narrative Essay Information

NARRATIVE ESSAY

In a personal narrative, you re-create an incident that happened to you over a short period of time.  This incident could be an emotional experience, a silly or serious event, or a frightening encounter.  Narrative writing requires students to think clearly about the details of an event as if it was a plot.  A narrative:

· Presents a story with a distinct plot.  The plot includes an internal or external conflict.  It has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

· Has a setting of some sort

· Presented in a specific point of view, usually spoken in the voice of a narrator or character

Optional Narrative prompts:

· Write about a time when you faced a challenge and what the outcome was.Be sure to narrate the series of events and include specific details.

· Write a story about when you taught someone something.  It can be anything that you know better than someone else.

· Think about an event in your life that taught you an important lesson. Write a narrative in which you tell what happened and how you learned a lesson.

· Write a narrative about a person or character who overcomes a difficult situation.  The character must be a person from history or from literature, movies or television.

Guidelines for Essay

· 350 – 500 words long or longer

· 1” margins and double-spaced

· Title

· Name, date and type of essay in the corner

· Page numbers in the bottom right corner

Writing Topics

Writing Topics

            Becoming a better writer means learning about developing content, organizing information, and putting all of that information into clear sentences.  I’ve listed the topics we’ll discuss in the order that we’ll discuss them.  I haven’t assigned them to particular weeks due to the fact that I intend to be flexible in order to meet the specific needs of the class.  In other words, we may speed through one topic and take time with another.

·        Writing to learn

·        Steps of the writing process

·        Pre-writing activities

·        Creating a writing Sourcebank of ideas

·        Writing outlines

·        Developing a thesis

·        Expanding a topic

·        Shaping a topic

·        Logical thinking about a topic

·        Introductions and Conclusions

·        Paragraph development

·        Coherence and Unity in paragraphs

·        Arranging paragraphs and details

·        Organization for emphasis

·        Tone

·        Audience appeal

·        Subjective/objective perspectives

·        Style:  formal/ informal

·        Style:  clear/concise/concrete

·        Style:  figurative/ diction/illustrations

·        Style:  problems

·        Developing Sentences:  transitions

·        Developing Sentences:  variety

·        Developing Sentences:  diction

·        Revising Strategies:  grammar/mechanics

·        Revising Strategies:  clarity/unity/coherence

·        Revising Strategies:  details

·        Peer editing

·        Researching:  primary/ secondary sources

·        Researching:  how/where

·        Researching:  note-taking

·        Plagiarism

·        Format for citing

·        Critical Thinking

·        Logical Thinking

·        Specific essays:

–         Personal

–         Narrative

–         History

–         Biography

–         News Story

–         Editorial

–         Theme study

–         Characterization