Week 4: Drafting and Revising Project 1

  • Dates: Monday, 9/23 and Wednesday, 9/25
  • Meeting Info: Each week, I will post an agenda that will outline the week’s work. It will include instructions for you and links to readings, discussion questions, and other work.  We will work on developing community both in our classroom and in our online written community.  

Objectives

  • To work on Project #1: Education Narrative
  • To consider and discuss aspects of education and educational experiences through the lens of our readings
  • To share ideas about our writing and writing process to help each other succeed with Project 1

To Do Before Week 4

Just in case you haven’t already, please:

To-Do This Week

Monday, 9/23: Drafting, Share-out, Writing Process

Texts:

Writing

  • Work on drafting your education narrative for Project 1. If you are staring at a blank screen or page, try to freewrite for 10-15 minutes about an meaningful learning experience in your education (whether related to school or not), what it taught you or how it changed you, and how it helped you get on the path you’re on now.
  • In class we will each say what we’re writing about. If you’re not comfortable speaking in class, you might want some notes to refer to or a sentence or two written down that you can read aloud. This won’t be a presentation, just a way for everyone to share ideas and for me to quickly see that everyone is on the right track. We’ll do this on Monday and again on Wednesday.
  • Please bring a copy of your draft to class, as well as post it on our site. Here’s how to post it:
    • Make sure you’re logged in to the OpenLab.
    • On our site, click the + in the top bar that runs across the site. Or, click on the name of our course at the top of the screen and go to the Dashboard, then click Posts and click Add New. If you’re doing this from your phone, you can get to the dashboard by clicking on the icon that looks like a car’s speedometer.
    • Add a title for your post.
    • Write your draft in the post, or copy and paste it in. Check to see that it looks ok.
    • Choose the category Project 1 Work. If you’re on a computer, you can access that in the right-hand sidebar, in the Post section (not the Block section). Scroll down until you see Categories. If you’re on your phone, scroll much further down because it should be below the part of the page where you write your post.
    • As you work, you probably want to click Save draft so it’s saved and you don’t lose any work. It might be a little icon instead of the words Save draft if you’re on a small screen.
    • If you want no one to be able to see your draft except for you and me, you’ll want to change the visibility of your post from public to private. If you want only those of us in the class to see it, choose More visibility options and select Site Members, or OpenLab members only if you prefer that option. If you’re open to anyone anywhere being able to see it, you can leave those options alone.
    • Make sure you click Publish to publish your post, and that you click it again if it asks if are you sure. A quick way to make sure your post is published is if instead of the blue button saying Publish it says Update. Another way to make sure is to look for it on our site!
    • Read these help materials on writing a post to answer any questions you have. This is good practice for submitting your finished Project 1!

In Class

  • Focused freewrite: Choose one or two of these photographs by Joel Sternfeld and write about what you notice. What feelings do the photographs elicit?
  • Another education narrative: “Rejection is a Good Teacher” by Robert Hammond [video of the speech]. What does he say? how does he connect to his audience? what do you want to do that he does? Author, audience, purpose, tone, style, diction–to RLW.
    • author is a liberal arts graduate talking to liberal arts graduates at The New School
    • purpose is: things might not go the way you expect, but this isn’t bad, not something to be scared of
    • graduation speech should be motivational, positive, celebrate what you’ve accomplished and look into the future
    • relates to audience on a personal level–especially the idea that he didn’t know what he wanted to do
    • uses a prop–the rejection letters
    • mentions a person who helped propel them in their project
  • in-class drafting:
    • How can you address the questions Bunn encourages us to ask any piece of writing when we read like writers?
    • how can you incorporate the elements of an education narrative?
    • What makes a good beginning for an education narrative? Which of our texts does it well that you can use as a model?
    • What makes a good ending for an education narrative? Which of our texts does it well that you can use as a model?
    • What are some ways to organize your narrative? Does it need to be in chronological order? Will you use flashbacks or flash-forwards?
    • What story are you telling? Where does it fit in your narrative?
    • Make a list of ideas you want to incorporate into your draft.
  • Some ideas from our discussion:
    • be detailed with your story
    • find an audience so you can relate to them. Your classmates; other students in your major; students who aren’t as far along as you are; future employers (but that would be harder)
  • Everyone shares what they’re writing about for Project #1: Education Narrative. Write for 5 minutes: what are you writing about for your education narrative? what else can you tell us about your draft, if anything?
  • Reading “Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott: What advice does her essay offer? What do we understand about her essay if we RLW? What is her process and how does it compare with yours? What might you borrow from her approach?
  • Peer review: we’re not trying to fix or edit our partner’s draft–instead, we’re offering them our perspective as a reader.
    • Read your partner’s draft without commenting. Then re-read the draft to do the following:
    • Note a part or two that stand out to you. What do you understand from those sentences? Let your classmate know what’s working with a sentence like “When you said… this really caught my attention because …” or “Your piece got me thinking about…”
    • What do you need to understand better? Let your classmate know what you needed clarification about with a sentence like “I got confused here when you said… because…”
    • What do you want to know more about? This might mean asking them to expand what they have, or to include dialogue, details, description, or something else. Let your classmate know with a sentence like “I wanted to know more about…..because…”
    • Suggest a possible title for your partner’s project

Wednesdsay, 9/25: Close to Finishing Project 1

Texts:

Writing:

  • Project 1 Drafts (Education Narrative) Due in class and on our site

In Class

  • Finishing, polishing, and sharing Project 1
  • Organization
    • “What’s a Paragraph?” by Carrie Hall
    • Re-outlining
    • One version of re-outlining: as you read your draft, make an outline on a separate page of the things you include in your draft.
    • Another version of re-outlining: make notes in the margins to see what you’re doing where.
    • Whichever version you do, consider the PIE (Point | Information/Illustration | Explanation) method from “What’s a Paragraph” and see how you might reorganize your education narrative.
  • Drafting: try a technique you read in one of our mentor texts, or that one of your classmates talked about. Write for 15 minutes.
  • Peer review: we’re not trying to fix or edit our partner’s draft–instead, we’re offering them our perspective as a reader.
    • Read your partner’s draft without commenting. Then re-read the draft to do the following:
    • Note a part or two that stand out to you. What do you understand from those sentences? Let your classmate know what’s working with a sentence like “When you said… this really caught my attention because …” or “Your piece got me thinking about…”
    • What do you need to understand better? Let your classmate know what you needed clarification about with a sentence like “I got confused here when you said… because…”
    • What do you want to know more about? This might mean asking them to expand what they have, or to include dialogue, details, description, or something else. Let your classmate know with a sentence like “I wanted to know more about…..because…”
    • Suggest a possible title for your partner’s project
  • Using Mentor Texts in our Education Narratives

Photo Credit: “Draft” by carnagenyc via Flickr under the license CC BY-SA 2.0.