Blueprinting

1. Blueprinting A Demonstration By Carol Nance Northwest High School cnance@northwest.k12.tx.us

2. Blueprinting is a prewriting strategy that aids the writer in generating topics by triggering memories through drawing, listing, and freewriting.

3. Peter Stillman describes the process in Families Writing (1989). Joyce Armstrong Carroll includes Stillman’s strategy in Acts of Teaching (1993) and calls it blueprinting. Sources

4. Theory Base “Sometimes topics are lodged in a basically nonverbal mode and need to make their escape through nonverbal means.” Joyce Armstrong Carroll (1993)

5. Theory Base “The visualization of some remembered place catches the writer off guard sometimes, and in that instant can be clarity of perception that illuminates an idea.” Joyce Armstrong Carroll (1993)

6. Theory Base “A sense of place has been the touchstone for many writers. . . .” “A memory trigger for many writers is simply to draw a floor plan of the earliest house they lived in, branching out from that with as much detail as they can remember about various rooms, the kinds of furniture in them---a favorite chair, perhaps, in which they curled up to read.” Kirk Polking (1995)

7. Theory Base “Listing is a remarkable generator for any writer. We use it all the time, but in such innocuous ways it doesn’t occur to us that we’re actually using our lists to think.” “. . . it’s that the very act of listing is a process of thought, of association. . . .” Peter Stillman (1989)

8. Procedure: • Draw an approximate floor plan of a place where you have lived. Use additional sheets if the home was multi-floored. • Label each room according to what it was, what it was used for, or who primarily used it.

9. Procedure continued: • On another sheet of paper, draw columns for each room and write appropriate headings. • Quickly list objects, events, memories as individual words or phrases as they occur to you.

10. Procedure continued: • When you have listed as much as you can, circle the words or phrases that grab your attention. • Draw lines between any items that seem to connect with each other. • Choose a single item or a connected pair. Freewrite about images, memories, or emotions---whatever is triggered by the word or connected pair.

11. Procedure continued: • Choose a form that suits your subject and develop it into a finished piece. OR • Create a paper house from construction or manila paper. Illustrate the house and write the piece on the inside of the house.

12. “ “It is the act of writing, reading, and remembering our own homes---the smells from the kitchen, the whispers from the bedroom, the sliver of light at the bottom of a closed door---that brings us together. It is what brings us home.” Sharon Sloan Fiffer (1995)

13. References Carroll, J. A. & Wilson, E. (1993). Acts of Teaching. Englewood Colorado: Teacher Ideas Press. Dragonwagon, C. (1990). Home Place. New York: Aladdin Books. Fiffer, S. S. & Fiffer, S. (Eds.). (1995). Home: American Writers Remember Rooms of Their Own. New York: Random House. Lyon, G. E. (1993). Dreamplace. New York: Orchard Books.

14. McLerran, A. (1998). The Legacy of Roxaboxen. Spring Texas: Absey & Company Press. McLerran, A. (1991). Roxaboxen. New York: Puffin Books. Polking, K. (1995). Writing Family Histories and Memories. Cincinnati: Betterway Books. Stillman, P. (1989). Families Writing. New York: Writer’s Digest Books.