Academic Writing Process presentation
Student Brush-up Notes Guide handout
Process
Review the student learning objectives and notice the explicit connection between these learning objectives and those from the earlier academic reading sessions. All forms of verbal communications -- reading/writing/listening/speaking -- are interconnected. Reading and listening are receptive; writing and speaking are expressive. All are verbal forms of communication (using words) to organize and transmit ideas. The objective of this Brush-up is to reinforce skills in academic reading and writing, in particular.
Academic Writing Introduction
Quickwrite: As warm-up, write for 3 minutes about the purpose of a college education. Follow up is a brief discussion.
The ways in which academic writing is different than writing in other contexts
Academic Writing Process presentation
Academic Writing Process demo Take an interactive journey through the process
(NOTE: Emphasis is on conveying to students that formal academic writing is a process that occurs over time. Because of the condensed time-frame of the Brush-up, not all assignments will be taken to fully revised and edited final draft during the Brush-up class time. On the last day of the Brush-up, as part of the assessment, students will have the opportunity to take one of these writing assignments to the final draft stage. If students want to have feedback on a final draft [strongly recommended] before being assessed on last day, they should complete the final drafts as homework and submit to instructor by next Brush-up meeting. Writing Scoring Rubric )
Academic Writing Process Checklist (template) handout
Outline Template and Diagram/Map handout (from sessions R1/R2; useful for both reading and writing processes)
Narrative texts: “Advantage” and “It’s Just Part of Who I Am” handouts (from session R2)
“Advantage” notes exemplar, “It’s Just a Part of Who I Am” notes exemplar (from session R2)
“Advantage” reduced to one paragraph
Sentence fragment presentation
Sentence fragment - one page handout handout
Sentence fragment - practice identifying (interactive/online)
Sentence fragment and run-ons practice handout
Sentence fragment find + fix long explanation optional (Refer students to this for more exhaustive explanation and more examples)
Student Brush-up Notes Guide handout
Process
Tomorrow we will talk more in-depth about different purposes for writing and various rhetorical styles or patterns of organization that authors use, depending on their purpose for writing. Today we will focus on narrative writing, as both of our samples from today’s reading sessions, Advantage” and “It’s Just Part of Who I Am”, are narrative texts. A narrative text generally informs the reader by telling a story, and it is often arranged in a chronological, or time order.
Look back at “Advantage” notes exemplar, “It’s Just a Part of Who I Am” notes exemplar and see how the information presented in them is arranged. Review the main point of each story and some of the supporting details. You are going to engage now in the writing process in response to a prompt that asks you to write a narrative.
Day 1 Writing assignment: Write a one-paragraph narrative about an event or series of events that caused you to take some action (quit a job, join a team, end a relationship, apply to college, change your mind about a decision, etc.) Purpose for writing is to inform by telling a story. Engage in the full writing process as you create the narrative.
Here’s a sample of “Advantage” reduced to one paragraph that may be used as a model to consult as you write your narrative. Here is an Academic Writing Process Checklist (template) you should use as you work through the writing process.
In workshop fashion, students engage in the writing process as presented in Session W1 today (pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing).
When there is about a half hour left, the group will take a pause in the process, and focus on a lesson related to the editing step -- how to recognize and fix the common error of sentence fragments. First is a review of what a sentence is (a set of words that conveys a complete thought and contains a subject and a verb).
Sentence fragment presentation
Sentence fragment - one page handout is a reference to use as you practice finding and fixing fragments.
Sentence fragment - practice identifying (interactive/online) as a whole class
Look into your draft to see if you find any fragments, and edit them, if so.
On the final day of the brush-up, during the assessment, you will choose to complete the writing process for one of the pieces of writing (maybe today’s) for which you have started the writing process on days 1-3.