Read: Clarity by Williams and Colomb

Write:

Let's have a feedback frenzy today. Anything on the wiki is game (WTI/Earth Democracy essays, Reflections, etc), and the the name of the game is feedback. Let's pull up our best prose and worst prose, take select sentences and paragraphs, and remix them, all together and in pairs or small groups. Let's find out how others would say what we've already said....and perhaps find out what we're really saying!

Connect, cut, and reconnect words, sound, images, and ideas.

consult this Connexions module, populate your paragraphs with characters and actions

tab this tabla

and listen as you read and remember

a simple one-two: "agent-based" prose

Select the most important paragraph from the peer draft you are reading. As you read focus your attention on the voice of the language. Do you find active configurations? Or passive constructions? This week, when we review each others' drafts, we have to be free to critique and open to suggestions. Identifying shifts in voice--from active to passive, and back again--can help you begin a conversation about the effectiveness of a peer's writing. If you find a paragraph in a peer's draft that "just doesn't seem right," read it aloud. Does the voice seem to shift randomly from active to passive voice, or does the writer seem to use voice to shift emphasis and direct your attention in order to amplify a particular argumentative pattern or point?

Experience grammatical voice as a rhetorical choice. Ask and answer these two questions:

Who's the agent (who's the "main character"?)? Place this main character in the subject position (the beginning of your sentence)

What is the primary action performed by the agent? Place this verb immediately following the character performing the action.

Perform this algorithm on your most recently composed paragraph in your WTI, or another group's WTI. Then, read the results aloud. Finally, shift your attention to the paragraph's specific purpose, imagine it in a larger argument or final project. Revise back into the passive voice when it helps emphasize your paragraph's overall rhetorical purpose.

Focus: transitions!

Now, look for transitions....between ideas, paragraphs, sentences, phrases, words...will your readers see your sequence of ideas?

Crucial resources for any rough draft workshop

Clarity from Joseph Williams and Gregory Columb's Style The Connexions module is based on this text.

Open Office and Neo Office - free open source software that replaces Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc.

speed up open office tips from lifehacker.com

koffice also like Microsoft Word, but free

Elements of Style, a classic

3 modules on clear writing style at Rice's Connexions, a creative commons of learning modules, online texts, and courses.

nonlinear adding machine got writer's block? Chisel it up, go on a syntactical "derive," find your "un-voice" See also: Ractor, chatterbots, etc

Widget Library! this "scriptorium" shares (java) scripts for making our wiki sizzle. F'shizzle!

html color codes I'm not sure if these will work with the new pbworks codes...but we should find out! Plug these #ers into css templates to customize your pages. Consider the rhetorical force of light and color.

head on back to:

Blood in the Gutter

5 October 5 October

Writing to Inform

notes, questions, etc

sentence-level edit pass

paragraph-level pass

issue statement

discussion

resolution statement

Gestalt psychology

Instruments, Tools, Guides, and Resources for Composition