The Writing Process

The Writing Process Prewriting Drafting Revising Editing and Proofreading Publishing

Prewriting

Collect Ideas • To collect ideas think about: • People you’ve met or talked to. • A funny, strange, or confusing memory. • Favorite people. • An imagined or overheard line of a dialogue. • A book that you’ve read: plot, characters, setting, pieces or dialogue.

Choose your topic • Make sure you narrow your topic so that it is not too general, for the kind of writing you’ll do. E.g. Page 20 of your Good Writer’s Guide.

Choose your audience • When you know your audience, you can choose the appropriate style and tone for your writing. • Page 21 of your Good Writer’s Guide

Choose your purpose • What do you want your audience to know or to do? That’ll be your purpose, or reason for writing. Choose your words and tone to fit your purpose. Page 22 of your book

Choose your Form • Writing is like going on a trip. Your topic, audience, and purpose are your map. Your form, or the type of writing you’ll do, is the vehicle that gets you where you want to go. • Are you writing a….?

FATP Chart • Form: • Audience: • Topic: • Purpose:

Let’s practice… • Read the following prompts and complete the FATP charts • What is something you dislike about yourself? • What would happen if you could fly whenever you wanted? When would you use this ability? • What do you think the world needs now?

Drafting “A blank page is like a blank face –you fill it in. And, like faces, the moods of the writing may change. You’ll have laughter on one page, and two pages later boiling anger. Or you may have faces that are downright ugly! Or way, way pretty!” -Gary Soto

Getting Started • Get comfortable • Tools ready: pencils, paper, computer. • FATP chart • Find your own technique to start writing • Quick burst • Spending time on opening paragraph before developing the body of the essay. • Work out of sequence. Start with the body and then back and add the introduction.

Read page 41 from “The Good Writer’s Guide” • Write down your favorite drafting technique. • Explain why you like it. • Do you use a different one? • Share with a partner. • Report back to the class.

Staying on Track… • If order for you to know if your paper is finished ask your self: • Would my opening paragraph grab a reader’s attention? • Does my writing say what I want it to say? Am I getting my message across? Do I need to cut or add anything? • Does the ending seem tacked on, or does it flow smoothly from the rest of the piece?

Knowing When You’re Done Read the following statement: “I used to think I had to______. In fact, that’s just a myth. The truth is, I write best when I__________.” Read Page 45 from your book and complete the statement above.

Drafting from beginning to End • Read page 46 from your “Good Writer’s book” • What are the three things you can’t miss when you write?

How to Hook the Reader in the Beginning. • Read Page 47 • Which one is your favorite type of hook? • Look at the overhead examples.

Introductions • Suppose you are introducing a friend to your brother Joe. Would you say "Hey, Joe, this is Tina," and then walk away leaving them there together? Of course not! You would tell Joe a little about Tina's background: where she's from, where she went to school, where she works, and any other important information that will make Joe want to get to know Tina better, right? Well, introducing your paper to your reader is the exact same thing. You want the reader to want to know more about your paper. You want to get the reader interested in what you might have to say.

There are several ways to write a good introduction or opening to your paper • Thesis Statement Opening This is the traditional style of opening a paper. This is a "mini-summary" of your paper. For example: Gallaudet University, the only liberal arts college for deaf students in the world, is world-renowned in the field of deafness and education of the deaf. Gallaudet's charter was signed by President Abraham Lincoln. Gallaudet owes its rich history and fame to two men: Amos Kendall and Edward Miner Gallaudet

Opening with a Story (Anecdote) A good way of catching your reader's attention is by sharing a story that sets up your paper. Sharing a story gives a paper a more personal feel and helps make your reader comfortable. This example was borrowed from Jack Gannon's The Week the World Heard Gallaudet (1989): Astrid Goodstein, a Gallaudet faculty member, entered the beauty salon for her regular appointment proudly wearing her DPN button. ("I was married to that button that week!" she later confided.) When Sandy, her regular hairdresser, saw the button, he spoke and gestured, "Never! Never! Never!" Offended, Astrid turned around and headed for the door, but stopped short of leaving. She decided to keep her appointment, confessing later that at that moment her sense of principles had lost out to her vanity. Later she realized that her hairdresser had thought she was pushing for a deaf U.S. President.

Specific Detail Opening Giving specific details about your subject appeals to your reader's curiosity and helps establish a visual picture of what your paper is about. For example: Hands flying, green eyes flashing, and spittle spraying Jenny howled at her younger sister Emma. People walk by gawking at the spectacle as Jenny's grunts emanate through the mall. Emma sucks at her thumb trying to appear nonchalant. Jenny's blond hair stands almost on end. Her hands seemed to fly so fast that her signs could barely be understood. Jenny was angry. Very angry.

Open with a QuotationAnother method of writing an introduction is to open with a quotation. This method makes your introduction more interactive and more appealing to your reader. For example: "Deaf people can do anything except hear," President I. King Jordan stated in his acceptance speech as thousands of deaf students and staff of Gallaudet University cheered. President Jordan's selection as the first deaf president of a university proved to be a monumental event for Gallaudet University and for deaf people all over the world.

Open with an Interesting Statistic Statistics that grab the reader help to make an effective introduction. For example: American Sign Language is the second most preferred foreign language in the United States. 50% of all deaf and hard of hearing people use ASL. ASL is beginning to be provided under the Foreign Language Department in many universities and high schools around the nation.* *The statistics are not accurate. They were invented as an example.

Question Openings Possibly the easiest opening is one that presents one or more questions to be answered in the paper. This is effective because questions are usually what the reader has in mind when he or she sees your topic. For example: Is ASL a language? Can ASL be written? Do you have to be born deaf to understand ASL completely? To answer these questions, one must first understand exactly what ASL is. In this paper, I attempt to explain this as well as answer my own questions.

Let’s practice • http://www.eslflow.com/academicwritng.html • http://www.edb.utexas.edu/pbl/ESOL/intro.htm

Conclusions The conclusion to any paper is the final impression that can be made. It is the last opportunity to get your point across to the reader and leave the reader feeling as if he or she learned something. Leaving a paper "dangling" without a proper conclusion can seriously devalue what was said in the body itself. Here are a few effective ways to conclude or close your paper.

Summary Closing Many times conclusions are simple re-statements of the thesis. Many times these conclusions are much like their introductions (see Thesis Statement Opening). For example: Because of a charter signed by President Abraham Lincoln and because of the work of two men, Amos Kendall and Edward Miner Gallaudet, Gallaudet University is what it is today - the place where people from all over the world can find information about deafness and deaf education. Gallaudet and the deaf community truly owe these three men for without them, we might still be "deaf and dumb."

Close with a Logical Conclusion This is a good closing for argumentative or opinion papers that present two or more sides of an issue. The conclusion drawn as a result of the research is presented here in the final paragraphs. For example: As one can see from reading the information presented, mainstreaming deaf students isn't always as effective as educating them in a segregated classroom. Deaf students learn better in a more one-on-one basis like they can find in a school or program specially designed for them. Mainstreaming is just that; deaf students get lost in the mainstream.

Real or Rhetorical Question Closings This method of concluding a paper is one step short of giving a logical conclusion. Rather than handing the conclusion over, you can leave the reader with a question that causes him or her to draw his own conclusions. For example: Why, then, are schools for the deaf becoming a dying species?

Close with a Speculation or Opinion This is a good style for instances when the writer was unable to come up with an answer or a clear decision about whatever it was he or she was researching. For example: Through all of my research, all of the people I interviewed, all of the institutions I visited, not one person could give me a clear-cut answer to my question. Can all deaf people be educated in the same manner? I couldn't find the "right" answer. I hope you, the reader, will have better luck.

Close with a Recommendation A good conclusion is when the writer suggests that the reader do something in the way of support for a cause or a plea for them to take action. For example: American Sign Language is a fast growing language in America. More and more universities and colleges are offering it as part of their curriculum and some are even requiring it as part of their program. This writer suggests that anyone who has a chance to learn this beautiful language should grab that opportunity.

Let’s practice • http://www.edb.utexas.edu/pbl/ESOL/conclu.htm#8

Revising What’s It Like? You’re going to a party and you know what you’re going to wear. But you want to look your best, so you take the time to consider you’re appearance : Is this just the right shade of lipstick? Would a blue shirt go better with those pants? Revising is like that: you know what you want to say in your writing, but you want to be sure you’re saying it most effectively.

Put a Listener on It (pages 52-55 “Good Writer’s Guide”) • Read your paper aloud to yourself. • Read your paper aloud to a partner. • Read your paper aloud to different people. • Practice: pages 17 and 18 from your workout book

Make Your Changes • GWG pg 55 • Teaching Visuals 7a-7B • Practice pgs19-20 (workout book)

Improve Your Writing: Elaboration • GWG Pg 58 and 59 • Visual writing prompt 40

Improve Your Writing: Idea Flow • GWG pgs 60-63 • Visual Writing Prompt 42

The Writing Process