Revising the Narrative: Structure

This is a slideshow we'll work with in class today to help you refine the structure of your Project #1's, where you're shaping a story about an object that's important to you.

An In-Class Survey from 2/11

Right HERE.

Slideshow from the Lab, 2/11

We'll shift to revision and editing today, and the activities we'll do in the lab are captured in this slideshow. We're working with larger to smaller concerns as a little introduction to revision, so we'll examine things like structure as a whole, but also sentence level issues as well--especially those that pertain to style and not just mechanics.

Commenting on Drafts, Inserting Photos

Two things from class today. One, here is the slideshow we used in class re: leaving comments for others in Drive.

Also, here are steps for getting a photo into your draft for tonight's 11:59 PM deadline. The easiest way is to use the Google Drive app on your phone (there's a link off the blog to the app, under Tech Tools). If you have the app, you can simply touch the add button within it, then choose your photo. It will copy the image to your drive. Alternatively, you could email the file to yourself, then add it easily to your Drive.

Once the image is in Drive, you can go into your draft file, then go to INSERT--IMAGE. There are the usual options for selecting the picture.

Once the image is dropped in, you'll want to probably make it smaller (just drag the corner handle on the image), and place it on either the left or right margin. To wrap the text, click the image, then choose Wrap Image (that command will appear below the image). Don't place the image in the middle of the page, as we can't read the text easily if you do so.

That's it! Be sure to share your file with me by 11:59 PM. :)

Showing, Not Telling

As you write your segments for the first project, try to SHOW, not merely TELL. You'll find yourself telling (explaining, not using sensory experience or narrative) when you simply talk "about" your object abstractly. You might find yourself, for instance, going on about the symbolic meaning of the object to you, what it "means" or what you "learned" from it.

Instead, try to get absorbed in helping readers experience the object. Help readers get into your world, into you using the object in real time, or into the story, letting it actually unfold as it happened. Work in descriptive details, basically, and try to ground us in the past somehow, rather than merely summarize what happened to you.

For illustration, compare the two excerpts that come from a past student's work with narrative and description. The first one is more like fastwriting, where the author is just explaining, but the second one is really trying to help you experience the thing. It's trying to help ground you in a moment in the past, and trying to be specific as it talks about what that object "says" about the author. Both examples are just the beginnings of the draft, but as readers, you'll likely have a completely different reaction to each!

Consider this: which excerpt helps you to know the author more? The author's life? Their personality? Their lived experiences as a unique person?

Keep asking yourself as you write: Am I just talking "about" this thing, or am I really trying to SHOW it to my readers? And SHOW its story?

Finally, here's a copy of the slideshow we worked with last class, if you wanted to get another peek at the before-and-after writing examples there.

Lab Materials from Class 2/2

Group, I'm just sharing with you here the slideshow on writing about an object, as well as the draft of my "raft" story. Hope they help! A few comments about both:

• the slideshow is really pushing you to think about what to do once you're in the process of generating all those details about your object and it's story. In other words, how might you use that "prewriting" to make an actual draft for a reader? There are several approaches there, along with my own examples. My object in that case is a book about how to write in shorthand.
• the "raft" example features two attempts to write a draft. The first one I would consider my initial draft, and even though it's organized, I think it's not as interesting as the beginning of the second one. The tip here is to consider the TIMELINE of your narrative, and to realize that telling everything in chronological order, from the beginning, might not be that interesting to a reader. The second version starts in media res, which means it starts in the middle of the action. I think it's a lot more engaging because of that, and maybe you do, too.

At-Home Activity: Survey on Your Project's Progress (due 9 AM Tues., 2/1)

For Tuesday's class, keep working thinking about (and even generating some writing for) our first project. It's fine to use Google Drive and type some description of your object, or try to tell a story you associate with it. Don't worry about whether the writing is "any good." Just get some text there. Time yourself if you like. Make yourself write for 15 minutes on the above, and that's that. Then at least when we get to the lab Tuesday you'll have *something*.

In addition, I'd like you to respond to this survey by 9 AM that day. Thanks very much!

Class in the Lab 1/28

Just posting some of the things we will use in the lab today (Thursday).

• The POLL we'll use during class (the link won't work until I use the site live).
• A link to Google Drive (drive.google.com), which we will set up in class. 
• A link to Coggle, but we'll learn how to connect this to Google Drive. 

In class we will work with the assignment and the readings. The readings are two examples of the kind of piece we're attempting to write. We will set up Google Drive and a file, and learn to use Coggle as a mind-mapping and brainstorming tool.

The PowerPoint on Written and Visual Communication

Just so you have it, I'm sharing the presentation from class today . . . right here.

At-Home Activity: Writing and Objects (Due Thurs., 1/27)

For Thursday's class, we're going to move on from seeing examples of photographs about objects to reading some examples of writing about them.

Just so you know, you have the ability to view the first project's official requirements. They are posted under the menu at the top of the blog: Project Requirements, but you can read them right here, too. So please, take a look at that first, and then move on to these two readings:

• "Ode to an Orange," by Larry Woiwode
• "Life without Go Go Boots," by Barbara Kingsolver

There will be no survey, but I want you to bring some writing to class. For both of these pieces, I want you to write down the following (and typing it would really be helpful):

• For each essay, what are some of the most vivid details (the ones you could really picture in your mind and "see")?
• For each essay, what do you think the writer was trying to focus on, exactly? There are lots of details and bits used for different reasons, but what do you think the "real" subject matter was that the writers were exploring here?

That's it: read the assignment, read the pieces, and bring writing to class in response to the above. See you Thursday!