What are your best academic writing exercises for undergraduates?
May 29, 2013 8:34 AM Subscribe
What exercises do you use in class to help undergraduates become better writers?
I teach a class to undergraduates (basically Academic Writing 101). I'm planning my syllabus for the fall, and would love even more great in-class exercises to help students become better writers. Any ideas?
I teach a class to undergraduates (basically Academic Writing 101). I'm planning my syllabus for the fall, and would love even more great in-class exercises to help students become better writers. Any ideas?
Pick a thing you like -- an activity, a book, a person, a feeling. Got that? Now turn to your left and look at the person next to you (if there's no one there, turn to your right). Pretend you're telling the person sitting next to you about that thing you like. Write what you would say, stream-of-consciousness style, exactly the way you would say it. Form the words in your mouth, write them down. If you have to stop and take a breath, end the sentence. Don't worry about punctuation or spelling or grammar, just talk (silently to yourself) and write. Tailor it to what you know or think about the person sitting next to you -- if that's someone you already know, then take into account what that person already knows about the thing. Write until you're done.
posted by Etrigan at 8:48 AM on May 29, 2013
posted by Etrigan at 8:48 AM on May 29, 2013
I teach writing in the course of teaching a different subject. I find my undergrads are already pretty good at writing their feelings, opinions, descriptions and impressions. They are great at doing exercises like, for example, free-writing about a food memory or a description of one of their favorite activities.
They aren't as good at what they really have to learn in college:how to make an effective and intelligent argument, or how to push their thinking towards an incisive written analysis. They will easily write a paper that is pretty bland in the correct form (thesis, supporting paragraphs, conclusion) and the goal is to get the content to be more original and insightful. THe most difficult thing is not getting them to free associate in writing, NOR to write a blah 5 paragraph essay, but to push themselves to think rigorously and creatively while writing in actual paragraphs with topic sentences.
SO for that, I find that they have appreciated the following:
1. Peer editing: Discussing their paper with a peer, really telling the other person where the paper is strong and weak, and then re-writing
2. Doing very close readings of texts or objects because usually the problem with their analyses is that they are general and vague
3. Spend a lot of time discussing what is a good argument and what is a good thesis. Bring in examples of good and bad theses. Practice constructing paragraph-long mini-essays arguing a thesis together in class.
4. Do a lot of work on passive voice constructions.
5. Put wordy, repetitious sentences on the board and let them re-write and share their revisions.
5. And yes, for fun and to get people comfortable with writing, do a lot of 10 minute free writing about personal topics, and allow them to share with class
posted by third rail at 9:23 AM on May 29, 2013 [4 favorites]
They aren't as good at what they really have to learn in college:how to make an effective and intelligent argument, or how to push their thinking towards an incisive written analysis. They will easily write a paper that is pretty bland in the correct form (thesis, supporting paragraphs, conclusion) and the goal is to get the content to be more original and insightful. THe most difficult thing is not getting them to free associate in writing, NOR to write a blah 5 paragraph essay, but to push themselves to think rigorously and creatively while writing in actual paragraphs with topic sentences.
SO for that, I find that they have appreciated the following:
1. Peer editing: Discussing their paper with a peer, really telling the other person where the paper is strong and weak, and then re-writing
2. Doing very close readings of texts or objects because usually the problem with their analyses is that they are general and vague
3. Spend a lot of time discussing what is a good argument and what is a good thesis. Bring in examples of good and bad theses. Practice constructing paragraph-long mini-essays arguing a thesis together in class.
4. Do a lot of work on passive voice constructions.
5. Put wordy, repetitious sentences on the board and let them re-write and share their revisions.
5. And yes, for fun and to get people comfortable with writing, do a lot of 10 minute free writing about personal topics, and allow them to share with class
posted by third rail at 9:23 AM on May 29, 2013 [4 favorites]
This text is great for in-class activities, and just about everything else.
posted by munyeca at 9:27 AM on May 29, 2013
posted by munyeca at 9:27 AM on May 29, 2013
I hope it's not non-responsive to your question, which is about "in class" exercises, but I find it's important for students that age to experience writing for an audience. This could be a class blog, a makeshift newsletter/portfolio that you distribute to local places or just leave on your school library's counter, etc. Many people reach college without delivering their writing to anyone except teachers. Make it real for them that other people will read their work, and not just in the safety of the classroom. It's not an exercise that specifically improves the ability to put text on paper; but it establishes context, which is important and motivating.
posted by cribcage at 9:34 AM on May 29, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by cribcage at 9:34 AM on May 29, 2013 [1 favorite]
I've posted this recently, but it's worth repeating.
In class, my students apply Richard Lanham's Paramedic Method to sample sentences, and then their sentences. The method allows a writer to deconstruct a sentence, decide what's important, and distill the verbiage down to what matters.
From the OWL:
This exercise illustrates that sentences are constructed, so they also be deconstructed.
posted by answergrape at 10:12 AM on May 29, 2013 [1 favorite]
In class, my students apply Richard Lanham's Paramedic Method to sample sentences, and then their sentences. The method allows a writer to deconstruct a sentence, decide what's important, and distill the verbiage down to what matters.
From the OWL:
- Circle the prepositions (of, in, about, for, onto, into)
- Draw a box around the "is" verb forms
- Ask, "Where's the action?"
- Change the "action" into a simple verb
- Move the doer into the subject (Who's kicking whom)
- Eliminate any unnecessary slow wind-ups
- Eliminate any redundancies.
This exercise illustrates that sentences are constructed, so they also be deconstructed.
posted by answergrape at 10:12 AM on May 29, 2013 [1 favorite]
When tutoring writing, one exercise I've used that is really powerful is to have the writer print out the first draft, and go through it with multiple colored highlighter pens, coding each sentence (or part of a sentence) according to the topic it covers. This helps the writer see if the material is all mixed up, vs. whether sentences covering Topic A are all generally clustered together. I have taught legal writing, which is similar to academic, and examples of how to characterize topics are:
Facts
Law
Analysis
or could be:
Reliability of documentary evidence
Reliability of testimony
Admissibility of documentary evidence
Admissibility of testimony
or could be:
Res judicata - the law
Res judicata - underlying policy of the principle
Res judicata - as it applies in this case
etc.
Seeing large blocks of a single color is preferable to a rainbow, and this exercise helps writers truly see what kinds of leaps they're making, and thus expecting their readers to make.
Another exercise I like is to have them draw a line through any words that don't add new information to the writing. Most writing is littered with throw-away phrases, redundancies, hedges, and other filler. I ask the writer to look at each word, phrase, sentence, even paragraph and see if she can find another place where the same idea is expressed. It's shocking how much fat can be trimmed if you're focusing specifically on that problem.
posted by Capri at 10:58 AM on May 29, 2013 [3 favorites]
Facts
Law
Analysis
or could be:
Reliability of documentary evidence
Reliability of testimony
Admissibility of documentary evidence
Admissibility of testimony
or could be:
Res judicata - the law
Res judicata - underlying policy of the principle
Res judicata - as it applies in this case
etc.
Seeing large blocks of a single color is preferable to a rainbow, and this exercise helps writers truly see what kinds of leaps they're making, and thus expecting their readers to make.
Another exercise I like is to have them draw a line through any words that don't add new information to the writing. Most writing is littered with throw-away phrases, redundancies, hedges, and other filler. I ask the writer to look at each word, phrase, sentence, even paragraph and see if she can find another place where the same idea is expressed. It's shocking how much fat can be trimmed if you're focusing specifically on that problem.
posted by Capri at 10:58 AM on May 29, 2013 [3 favorites]
I don't have answers for you, but I do know questions I'd be asking before picking a text/course plan.......
What is their level of preparation? Motivation? Time available for work? How would you rate their writing? What level do they need to get to?
What majors are they? Who is the writing for? What discipline? What audience? What style (persuasive, descriptive, poetic, archival, fiction, fact etc etc).
posted by lalochezia at 11:04 AM on May 29, 2013
What is their level of preparation? Motivation? Time available for work? How would you rate their writing? What level do they need to get to?
What majors are they? Who is the writing for? What discipline? What audience? What style (persuasive, descriptive, poetic, archival, fiction, fact etc etc).
posted by lalochezia at 11:04 AM on May 29, 2013
Best answer: Here are a few of mine.
1. Organization by post-it note: When working on organization, post-it notes can be a good way to plan out the order of a paper after brainstorming but before drafting. They can do this individually or in groups, but groups work pretty well because they can help add other ideas or discuss any differences of opinion about organization. Have them stand up and do the post-its on the wall. There's not always a lot of space for physical activity in a writing classroom, so any chance to stand up and move around keeps them interested.
You can also do this one as part of peer review in between an early and final draft. Have a peer write the point/topic of each paragraph on a post it and number them. If the classmate can't figure out the point of paragraph #2, for instance, they can just write their best guess or a question mark. If the point can't be put into just a few words to fit on the post it, that's a clue for the author that they may need to work on clarity.
You can also use PowerPoint if they have computers but no post its since it forces a linear organization.
2. Asking research questions via YouTube: After we've talked about research questions, one thing I do is to pull a 3-4 min. YouTube video I think they might be interested in. Lately, I've been using Red Bull extreme athletic stuff, but it doesn't really matter. After the video, they blurt out whatever questions they have, but the questions have to be specific ("Why aren't there any women in the competition?" or "What material is that bike made out of?" are specific questions. "How did they do that?" isn't, but "What physics enable that trick? or "How did they train for that trick?" are). This is a mass brainstorming session. If there's time, I sometimes have them watch the video again to see what they might have missed the first time (this later becomes a lesson in why you sometimes have to read academic works more than once, but I don't use that part of the lesson until another day). Then we talk about what research papers could come out of the questions--"Why do young men take more physical risks than young women?" for instance, which leads into another brainstorming session on keywords for use in database searches. This process shows them that even crazy things on YouTube are worthy of academic inquiry and that this process of asking questions is key to understanding the way academic research is supposed to work.
3. Audience awareness via shopping bags: I've done a number of variations on this one, but it's one I often use early in the semester when I want them to think about stylistic differences among the different types of writing they'll do. I bring in bags from various stores (or ask them to bring one in), and we talk about how the bags reflect on the store, the people carrying the bags, and the people seeing the bags. I've had the most success doing this with one genre of store (like shoe stores) so they can see differences between Florsheim's, Journeys, Famous Footwear, Foot Locker or whatever. They giggle when I ask them what they think when they see a dude carrying a Victoria's Secret Bag. They're pretty good at basic audience analysis. However, then I give them a scenario where they get in groups to design a bag for a particular store (a men's spa, a pie bakery, etc.). I don't give them a lot of guidance, but as they design, they are making decisions about appealing to an audience. Later, I help them see how they have to make decisions about style in their writing that are analogous to those decisions about design.
4. Argument by definition: I used this askme to start a discussion about argument by definition: Cereal = Soup?. I don't show them the thread initially, but I have them work through the process of defining soup. Then I complicate their definition by showing them that not all soups are hot, that some soups are made with fruit, etc. Then I introduce the question of cereal. Some say, "Yep--based on our definition, cereal is definitely soup." Others contend that no one things of it that way. Arguments ensue. They love it. You can do the same with the definition of sandwich and then ask if a hot dog is a sandwich. This is a good lesson for leading into discussions of the limits of definitions of words like family, patriotism, or marriage.
5. Sending them out to find grammar issues in the wild: I send them out in groups of 2-3 to find something "in the wild" with a grammar error or something that is stylistically unclear. I give them about 15 min. to find something and bring it back or take a picture. Sometimes they find actual errors (student bulletin boards are usually full of them), but they often grab the student paper or official university materials and find things that should be written better. They like the idea of tracking down these grammar issues. I've only done this one once, but I was surprised how well it worked.
6. Being responsive to what you see/read. This is a general thing rather than a specific one, but if I read something that illustrates a point we've discussed or is a good/bad example, I'll bring it into class. I may bring in a meme that shows how in-group assumptions facilitate communication or a newspaper article that relies on a particular kind of evidence or rhetorical move. Eventually, I usually get a few students who join in and bring their own observations to class or send me links to something they've seen.
Overall, I'm trying to get them to be more active and have more hands-on exercises with applications to writing, even if the activities are a bit cheesy. They probably won't remember a lecture on argument by definition, but they're going to go tell their friends that Lucky Charms can be soup. Writing has been this bad, hard thing for so many of them that these little activities help them see writing as something that is more about thinking than about grammar, and I think that's a very important lesson for university students if we want them to really understand academic writing.
posted by BlooPen at 2:30 PM on May 29, 2013 [6 favorites]
1. Organization by post-it note: When working on organization, post-it notes can be a good way to plan out the order of a paper after brainstorming but before drafting. They can do this individually or in groups, but groups work pretty well because they can help add other ideas or discuss any differences of opinion about organization. Have them stand up and do the post-its on the wall. There's not always a lot of space for physical activity in a writing classroom, so any chance to stand up and move around keeps them interested.
You can also do this one as part of peer review in between an early and final draft. Have a peer write the point/topic of each paragraph on a post it and number them. If the classmate can't figure out the point of paragraph #2, for instance, they can just write their best guess or a question mark. If the point can't be put into just a few words to fit on the post it, that's a clue for the author that they may need to work on clarity.
You can also use PowerPoint if they have computers but no post its since it forces a linear organization.
2. Asking research questions via YouTube: After we've talked about research questions, one thing I do is to pull a 3-4 min. YouTube video I think they might be interested in. Lately, I've been using Red Bull extreme athletic stuff, but it doesn't really matter. After the video, they blurt out whatever questions they have, but the questions have to be specific ("Why aren't there any women in the competition?" or "What material is that bike made out of?" are specific questions. "How did they do that?" isn't, but "What physics enable that trick? or "How did they train for that trick?" are). This is a mass brainstorming session. If there's time, I sometimes have them watch the video again to see what they might have missed the first time (this later becomes a lesson in why you sometimes have to read academic works more than once, but I don't use that part of the lesson until another day). Then we talk about what research papers could come out of the questions--"Why do young men take more physical risks than young women?" for instance, which leads into another brainstorming session on keywords for use in database searches. This process shows them that even crazy things on YouTube are worthy of academic inquiry and that this process of asking questions is key to understanding the way academic research is supposed to work.
3. Audience awareness via shopping bags: I've done a number of variations on this one, but it's one I often use early in the semester when I want them to think about stylistic differences among the different types of writing they'll do. I bring in bags from various stores (or ask them to bring one in), and we talk about how the bags reflect on the store, the people carrying the bags, and the people seeing the bags. I've had the most success doing this with one genre of store (like shoe stores) so they can see differences between Florsheim's, Journeys, Famous Footwear, Foot Locker or whatever. They giggle when I ask them what they think when they see a dude carrying a Victoria's Secret Bag. They're pretty good at basic audience analysis. However, then I give them a scenario where they get in groups to design a bag for a particular store (a men's spa, a pie bakery, etc.). I don't give them a lot of guidance, but as they design, they are making decisions about appealing to an audience. Later, I help them see how they have to make decisions about style in their writing that are analogous to those decisions about design.
4. Argument by definition: I used this askme to start a discussion about argument by definition: Cereal = Soup?. I don't show them the thread initially, but I have them work through the process of defining soup. Then I complicate their definition by showing them that not all soups are hot, that some soups are made with fruit, etc. Then I introduce the question of cereal. Some say, "Yep--based on our definition, cereal is definitely soup." Others contend that no one things of it that way. Arguments ensue. They love it. You can do the same with the definition of sandwich and then ask if a hot dog is a sandwich. This is a good lesson for leading into discussions of the limits of definitions of words like family, patriotism, or marriage.
5. Sending them out to find grammar issues in the wild: I send them out in groups of 2-3 to find something "in the wild" with a grammar error or something that is stylistically unclear. I give them about 15 min. to find something and bring it back or take a picture. Sometimes they find actual errors (student bulletin boards are usually full of them), but they often grab the student paper or official university materials and find things that should be written better. They like the idea of tracking down these grammar issues. I've only done this one once, but I was surprised how well it worked.
6. Being responsive to what you see/read. This is a general thing rather than a specific one, but if I read something that illustrates a point we've discussed or is a good/bad example, I'll bring it into class. I may bring in a meme that shows how in-group assumptions facilitate communication or a newspaper article that relies on a particular kind of evidence or rhetorical move. Eventually, I usually get a few students who join in and bring their own observations to class or send me links to something they've seen.
Overall, I'm trying to get them to be more active and have more hands-on exercises with applications to writing, even if the activities are a bit cheesy. They probably won't remember a lecture on argument by definition, but they're going to go tell their friends that Lucky Charms can be soup. Writing has been this bad, hard thing for so many of them that these little activities help them see writing as something that is more about thinking than about grammar, and I think that's a very important lesson for university students if we want them to really understand academic writing.
posted by BlooPen at 2:30 PM on May 29, 2013 [6 favorites]
I taught the intro to academic writing course about eight times while I was still in grad school. To be honest, I did a pretty bad job of it at first, but over time I learned a lot and ended up being very satisfied with the course materials I developed or adapted.
Teaching academic writing is, of course, a more narrowly targeted goal than just teaching students to be "better writers" in general. I'm going to point you to a couple of my previous comments on this topic.
As I've mentioned before, I eventually realized that instead of starting from the claim or thesis, I needed to teach students how to gather and analyze evidence first. This approach lends itself to lots of in-class group activities where students make lists of evidence, discuss possible analyses of the evidence, discuss whether a given claim is supported by the evidence, etc. One of my favorite classroom activities is to have students generate a list of about 12-18 facts about a literary character, then give them five different claims about the character. They have to pick three facts to support each claim and write a reason explaining how the evidence supports the claim. They always end up with different groups using the same evidence to support conflicting claims, which demonstrates the importance of interpreting your evidence for the reader instead of just plunking it into your essay.
posted by Orinda at 10:52 PM on May 29, 2013
Teaching academic writing is, of course, a more narrowly targeted goal than just teaching students to be "better writers" in general. I'm going to point you to a couple of my previous comments on this topic.
As I've mentioned before, I eventually realized that instead of starting from the claim or thesis, I needed to teach students how to gather and analyze evidence first. This approach lends itself to lots of in-class group activities where students make lists of evidence, discuss possible analyses of the evidence, discuss whether a given claim is supported by the evidence, etc. One of my favorite classroom activities is to have students generate a list of about 12-18 facts about a literary character, then give them five different claims about the character. They have to pick three facts to support each claim and write a reason explaining how the evidence supports the claim. They always end up with different groups using the same evidence to support conflicting claims, which demonstrates the importance of interpreting your evidence for the reader instead of just plunking it into your essay.
posted by Orinda at 10:52 PM on May 29, 2013
One thing I've noticed in freshman expository writing is timidity of form, a refusal to venture out from ye olde five paragraph essay. You might assign your students a six paragraph essay about three ideas, or a four paragraph essay covering four topics, not omitting a full introduction and conclusion. That's your way into discussing form, organization, paragraphs, transitions, and proportion.
posted by Iridic at 11:19 AM on May 30, 2013
posted by Iridic at 11:19 AM on May 30, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by quodlibet at 8:37 AM on May 29, 2013 [1 favorite]