Continue to work on the material we worked on last week. You will have feedback prior to next class.
See you 11.25!
Monday, November 18, 2013
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
11.11 Creating a summary of your memoir/biography, building vocabulary, and working on patterns
Writing an overview of your memoir/biography.
We started class by looking at the moves writers make when the write a summary. A summary shortens and condenses the material in the original text. By condenses, I mean that it puts what the text means or shows, or gives the main idea, rather than stating all of "what happened" in a story, or all of the main ideas in an essay. We tried to find a story that all of us were familiar with, but we were not successful, so we used "The Indian Dog," which we read last week (See previous post).
Our list of what summaries do (and do not do) was as follows.
Summaries:
are shorter than the original text
focus on "what the text means/is about" or the main ideas
often start with a general statement of what the text shows/is about/means
use the body (middle) of their writing to state to ideas/meanings that contribute to the text's overall interpretation
often end with a re-statement of the texts overall meaning
do not include all of the "what happened" of the text (re-tell the story)
You then wrote a list of the ideas that were central to the stories you were writing as a memoir or biography. Once you identified the central ideas/feelings/meanings=> you wrote a short paragraph to sum up what your piece was "about."
You then titled you work Summary11.11 (or something like that) and posted it to your in-class writing page on the google.site. I will read these summaries and give you some feedback for next week's class. We talked about how writing a summary of your work (especially a long work like this one) can help you identify the focus. Have a clear, detailed understanding of your main points/ideas helps writers to write more coherent, more focused essays. As you continue to work on your memoir/biography, referring to your summary will help you decide:
We then spent about 10 minutes looking around for sites that might provide practice, information, or other resources for developing vocabulary. Most of you indicated that dictionary.com provided the most effective help for you.
Sentence patterns.
We concluded class with one-on-one conferences to identify ( and post to your site) the sentence patterns that you will use to polish and revise your writing. Researchers have found that writers do not make "mistakes" randomly. Usually, they make mistakes in systematic ways. That is, they make the same mistake over and over. This suggests that an important strategy for making your writing stronger (with fewer nonstandard sentence constructions) is to identify your patterns for error. For those of you who have turned in more than 5 pages of writing, I have used the side comments to point out some patterns you can use to "correct" your writing. Each of you have different sets of patternes - mostly because you speak different languages and each home language pre-disposes multilingual writers to build particular kinds of nonstandard sentences - usually sentences that reflect patterns from their home language. Some of the patterns we noticed as I walked around the classroom reflect your home languages, and some of the patterns are typical issues all writers struggle with as they move from speech to writing. This second kind of problems is because the conventions are writing are DIFFERENT from the conventions for speaking, so learning to write in English, is almost like learning another language.
Here is a list of some of the patterns to think about with respect to your work:
fused/combined sentences
writing complete sentences (sentence fragments)
remaining in the narrative past when telling relating stories (another way to state this is that, in general, writers need to remain in the same tense within the same sentence)
subject verb agreement
knowing when to use articles with nouns (and when not to)
paragraphing
conventions for writing dialog
writing parallel sentences
use of prepositions (many uses are associated with idioms)
The best approach is to identify ONE PATTERN, and proofread your entire paper for that pattern, noting all the different ways you use the pattern correctly and incorrectly. This will give you time (and enough examples) to notice the ways you approach this pattern, and learn how to create a range of sentences where you use it correctly.
I asked you to identify the patterns you were working on, and to post them to your site.
For next week:
Each of you are at different places in your writing so your assignments will vary. Here is the list.
For everyone:
Post vocabulary words to your google site. These should be the words you are learning, looking for as you work on your memoir (and your readings for other courses). Include the words and their definitions. Come to class prepared to ask questions about vocabulary you need and can't find, or about words that have shades of meaning that are difficult.
Work on your memoir/biography as listed below. Use track changes, and post your revised draft to google.sites.
For those of you who have less than 6 pages of writing.
Develop three or more pages of writing. Don't worry about correct language. Try to develop stories/descriptions/reflections that will develop the focus you identified in your summary.
For those of you with more than 6 pages of writing
Continue to develop your memoir/biography. See if you can write to the "end". Develop materials which reflect the focus from your summary.
Begin to look for sentence patterns. When you identify a pattern in your writing that you will work on, identify the error on your google. site (as we discussed in class) and begin working on that pattern in your essay (see post above on .
Good work and see you next week!
We started class by looking at the moves writers make when the write a summary. A summary shortens and condenses the material in the original text. By condenses, I mean that it puts what the text means or shows, or gives the main idea, rather than stating all of "what happened" in a story, or all of the main ideas in an essay. We tried to find a story that all of us were familiar with, but we were not successful, so we used "The Indian Dog," which we read last week (See previous post).
Our list of what summaries do (and do not do) was as follows.
Summaries:
are shorter than the original text
focus on "what the text means/is about" or the main ideas
often start with a general statement of what the text shows/is about/means
use the body (middle) of their writing to state to ideas/meanings that contribute to the text's overall interpretation
often end with a re-statement of the texts overall meaning
do not include all of the "what happened" of the text (re-tell the story)
You then wrote a list of the ideas that were central to the stories you were writing as a memoir or biography. Once you identified the central ideas/feelings/meanings=> you wrote a short paragraph to sum up what your piece was "about."
You then titled you work Summary11.11 (or something like that) and posted it to your in-class writing page on the google.site. I will read these summaries and give you some feedback for next week's class. We talked about how writing a summary of your work (especially a long work like this one) can help you identify the focus. Have a clear, detailed understanding of your main points/ideas helps writers to write more coherent, more focused essays. As you continue to work on your memoir/biography, referring to your summary will help you decide:
- which stories you might want to add to your writing so far (=> events, descriptions, feelings, reflections which develop the focus stated in your summary);
- what parts of the essay which should be edited out or deleted (=>stories/descriptions/information which does not develop the focus stated in your summary); and
- the best order for your memoir/biography (=> an order which develops the focus stated in your summary).
We then spent about 10 minutes looking around for sites that might provide practice, information, or other resources for developing vocabulary. Most of you indicated that dictionary.com provided the most effective help for you.
Sentence patterns.
We concluded class with one-on-one conferences to identify ( and post to your site) the sentence patterns that you will use to polish and revise your writing. Researchers have found that writers do not make "mistakes" randomly. Usually, they make mistakes in systematic ways. That is, they make the same mistake over and over. This suggests that an important strategy for making your writing stronger (with fewer nonstandard sentence constructions) is to identify your patterns for error. For those of you who have turned in more than 5 pages of writing, I have used the side comments to point out some patterns you can use to "correct" your writing. Each of you have different sets of patternes - mostly because you speak different languages and each home language pre-disposes multilingual writers to build particular kinds of nonstandard sentences - usually sentences that reflect patterns from their home language. Some of the patterns we noticed as I walked around the classroom reflect your home languages, and some of the patterns are typical issues all writers struggle with as they move from speech to writing. This second kind of problems is because the conventions are writing are DIFFERENT from the conventions for speaking, so learning to write in English, is almost like learning another language.
Here is a list of some of the patterns to think about with respect to your work:
fused/combined sentences
writing complete sentences (sentence fragments)
remaining in the narrative past when telling relating stories (another way to state this is that, in general, writers need to remain in the same tense within the same sentence)
subject verb agreement
knowing when to use articles with nouns (and when not to)
paragraphing
conventions for writing dialog
writing parallel sentences
use of prepositions (many uses are associated with idioms)
The best approach is to identify ONE PATTERN, and proofread your entire paper for that pattern, noting all the different ways you use the pattern correctly and incorrectly. This will give you time (and enough examples) to notice the ways you approach this pattern, and learn how to create a range of sentences where you use it correctly.
I asked you to identify the patterns you were working on, and to post them to your site.
For next week:
Each of you are at different places in your writing so your assignments will vary. Here is the list.
For everyone:
Post vocabulary words to your google site. These should be the words you are learning, looking for as you work on your memoir (and your readings for other courses). Include the words and their definitions. Come to class prepared to ask questions about vocabulary you need and can't find, or about words that have shades of meaning that are difficult.
Work on your memoir/biography as listed below. Use track changes, and post your revised draft to google.sites.
For those of you who have less than 6 pages of writing.
Develop three or more pages of writing. Don't worry about correct language. Try to develop stories/descriptions/reflections that will develop the focus you identified in your summary.
For those of you with more than 6 pages of writing
Continue to develop your memoir/biography. See if you can write to the "end". Develop materials which reflect the focus from your summary.
Begin to look for sentence patterns. When you identify a pattern in your writing that you will work on, identify the error on your google. site (as we discussed in class) and begin working on that pattern in your essay (see post above on .
Good work and see you next week!
Monday, November 11, 2013
Writing summaries and free vocabulary building sites
Sample summary
In my memoir I write about. . .My memoir focuses on/presents/provides an overview of /tells the story of
. . .
The story opens/begins with (a description of, stories about, bacground information about,
. . .
The Indian Dog tells about the author’s experience
buying, and losing, a dog when he was twelve years old. He describes his feelings for the dog
and his attempt to keep it even though he could see that the dog did not want
to stay, and he presents the dog’s character both as he wanted it to be, and as
he knew it to be in actuality. The
story emphasizes both what the author knows and what he keeps himself from
knowing, and concludes with a larger reflection on how our heart’s
longing can blind us or open our eyes to the world as it is seen through the
eyes of another.
Opening phrases:In my memoir I write about. . .My memoir focuses on/presents/provides an overview of /tells the story of
Development of the
different points within your story:
I begin by. . .
(describing, relating, giving background, reflecting onThe story opens/begins with (a description of, stories about, bacground information about,
. . .
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
11.4 Working through your drafts using track changes
I returned a draft to each of you with comments that used the review functions for MicrosoftWord. In class we walked through some of the formatting and reviewing possibilities available of MSWord.
As you see in the below image, there are eight tabs (depending on which version you have), each of which will allow you to perform different functions and make different changes to your documents.
We talked a little about using the Format and Home tabs to set up templates for your documents, but mostly we talked about using Track Changes, at the Review tab.
Directions for how to use Track Changes can be found at: http://www.wikihow.com/Edit-a-Document-Using-Microsoft-Word's-Track-Changes-Feature.
You read through the comments on your drafts, and I spoke to each of you to ensure that you had a plan for moving forward. Each of you are in different places with your writing. Some of you need to do some more brainstorming and develop some more material, some of you are ready to work on focus and organization (developing a stronger introduction and narrative thread - so that your memoir is "about" something the way "The Indian Dog," "Fallout" and "The Accident" were focused on a particular set of ideas), and some of you are ready to begin polishing the language/working on sentence patterns & grammar. Each of you should work from where you are in the writing process.
We spent the second part of class reading through a very short memoir-like piece, N. Scott Momaday's "The Indian Dog," and noticing how the author developed his theme: how he set up his ideas in the introduction, how he developed them through portraying particular events (events that he CHOSE because they best illustrate and allowed him to explore his ideas) and how his ending drew his ideas to a conclusion.
For next week:
1. Write a short paragraph about what your memoir is about. Post this writing to your site as a MSWord attachment to the in-class writing link. Title this document: OverviewMemoir.
2. Work on your memoir/biography, developing or revising whatever needs work. Attach your revised essay to your google.site by Sunday, November 10, at noon. Your work should be carried out in track change so that I can see what you have added to the draft from 11.4 Title this writing: YourNameDraft11.10. If I were to turn in this assignment, my draft would be named: ChanderDraft11.10
3. Post vocabulary, either from class or from your own reading, to your site.
Come to class prepare to discuss the focus of your memoir/biography, and ready to create a map of the stories you will use to develop this focus.
Thank you for the good class, and see you next week!
As you see in the below image, there are eight tabs (depending on which version you have), each of which will allow you to perform different functions and make different changes to your documents.
We talked a little about using the Format and Home tabs to set up templates for your documents, but mostly we talked about using Track Changes, at the Review tab.
Directions for how to use Track Changes can be found at: http://www.wikihow.com/Edit-a-Document-Using-Microsoft-Word's-Track-Changes-Feature.
You read through the comments on your drafts, and I spoke to each of you to ensure that you had a plan for moving forward. Each of you are in different places with your writing. Some of you need to do some more brainstorming and develop some more material, some of you are ready to work on focus and organization (developing a stronger introduction and narrative thread - so that your memoir is "about" something the way "The Indian Dog," "Fallout" and "The Accident" were focused on a particular set of ideas), and some of you are ready to begin polishing the language/working on sentence patterns & grammar. Each of you should work from where you are in the writing process.
We spent the second part of class reading through a very short memoir-like piece, N. Scott Momaday's "The Indian Dog," and noticing how the author developed his theme: how he set up his ideas in the introduction, how he developed them through portraying particular events (events that he CHOSE because they best illustrate and allowed him to explore his ideas) and how his ending drew his ideas to a conclusion.
For next week:
1. Write a short paragraph about what your memoir is about. Post this writing to your site as a MSWord attachment to the in-class writing link. Title this document: OverviewMemoir.
2. Work on your memoir/biography, developing or revising whatever needs work. Attach your revised essay to your google.site by Sunday, November 10, at noon. Your work should be carried out in track change so that I can see what you have added to the draft from 11.4 Title this writing: YourNameDraft11.10. If I were to turn in this assignment, my draft would be named: ChanderDraft11.10
3. Post vocabulary, either from class or from your own reading, to your site.
Come to class prepare to discuss the focus of your memoir/biography, and ready to create a map of the stories you will use to develop this focus.
Thank you for the good class, and see you next week!
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