Learning to write good

Learning to Write Good

How to know what you rock at and what you don’t so much rock at

Well

WRITING IS HARD TO MEASURE

Writing should adapt to your

audience

This class teaches you how to write for an

ACADEMIC audience

WHAT DO ACADEMIC READERS VALUE?


Sophistication

ClarityInsight

Ambivalence


The text as a Window

Classic Style

Other Styles

Romantic Oratorical Reflexive Practical

How to evaluate your own writing

6 Traits + 1IdeasVoice Sentence Fluency

Word Choice

Organization Conventions

RESEARCHIdeasVoice Sentence Fluency

Word Choice


9-point Scale

1 3 5 97Deficit Emerging

High School Standard

Honors Standard

College Standard

1 3 5 97Deficit Emerging

High School Standard

Honors Standard

College Standard

Ideas VoiceWord Choice

Sentence Fluency


Score your Own

Sentence Fluency

5

7

9

Over reliance on the same lengths. Lack of variety. Little use of branching. Minimal use

of semicolons, colons,dashes.

Varied sentence lengths. Multiple types. Good use of

branching. Regular use of semicolons, colons,dashes.

Creative and sophisticated use of sentence types to create

artistic effect.

;

—

:

Connecting two related sentences or using THEREFORE

Strong comma. Used to set off important clauses.

I love danger; therefore, I became an English teacher.

When I became a teacher—nearly 2

years since the war started—I decided to

battle the forces of darkness.

Indicates a list is coming or an example. Left side is a full

sentence. The right side is not.

I have little time to rest: my next

appointment is in one hour.

Count the number of words per sentence.

Note the type of sentences you used. Left, middle, right

branching? Compound sentence?

Indicate the overall effect of your sentence flow. What could be

combined or broken up to give your writing more variety.

Analyze your

writing

Sentence Fluency

It was there when he woke up. Presumably also when he slept. The blot. Standing

alone at the back of the sparsely populated ferry to Kladow, mercifully sheltered

behind safety glass against the chill of the lake at evening, Alexander Bruno could no

longer deny the blot that had swollen in his vision and was with him always, the

vacancy now deforming his view of the receding shore. It forced him to peer around its edges for glimpses of the

mansions and biergartens, the strip of sand at the century-old lido, the

tarpaulined sailboats. He’d come to Berlin , half the circumference of the world, two

weeks ago, whether to elude his fate or to embrace it he couldn’t know. from A GAMBLER’S ANATOMY

by Jonathan Lethem

It was there when he woke up.

Presumably also when he slept.

The blot.

Standing alone at the back of the sparsely populated ferry to Kladow, mercifully

sheltered behind safety glass against the chill of the lake at evening, Alexander

Bruno could no longer deny the blot that had swollen in his vision and was with him

always, the vacancy now deforming his view of the receding shore.

Short Sentence (6)

Fragment (5)

Super short fragment (2)



The blot.





Short Sentence

Fragment

Super short fragment

Long sentence: (54)

Delayed subject with two clauses



The blot.





Short Sentence

Fragment


Long sentence:

Relationship to the “blot”



The blot.





Short Sentence

Fragment


Long sentence:

Added dependent clause

It forced him to peer around its edges for glimpses of the mansions and biergartens, the strip of sand at the century-old lido, the tarpaulined

sailboats.

He’d come to Berlin , half the circumference of the world, two

weeks ago, whether to elude his fate or to embrace it he couldn’t know.

Medium Sentence (26)

Three items in a series Asyndeton

It forced him to peer around its edges for glimpses of the mansions and biergartens, the strip of sand at the century-old lido, the tarpaulined

sailboats.

He’d come to Berlin, half the circumference of the world, two

weeks ago, whether to elude his fate or to embrace it he couldn’t know.


Three items in a series Asyndeton


2 Middle branching phrases

Your Turn

Short Sentence (6)

Fragment (5)

Super short fragment (2)

Long sentence: (54) Delayed subject with two clauses

Medium Sentence (26) Three items in a series Asyndeton

Medium Sentence (25) 2 Middle branching phrases

Ideas

5

7

9

Vague specifics hinted at rather than provided. Sometimes lacking

in relevance. Over-reliance on personal or hypothetical examples.

Evidence is specific with sensory details. Ideas connect

clearly with the point being made. Avoids cliche.

Ideas are surprising, creative, and sophisticated. Often come

from sophisticated sources and are applied in intriguing ways.

Read Bill Gates’s This I Believe:

Unleashing the power of Creativity

Read T. Susan Chang’s This I Believe:

The Imperfect traces by Human hands

Chang GatesThere are still far too

many people in the world whose most

basic needs go unmet. Every year, for

example, millions of people die from

diseases that are easy to prevent or

treat in the developed world.

But something was changing in me. As the world went digital and the Matrix movies played to packed houses, I found myself drawn to fountain pens, clothbound books and bargain-priced LPs.

Rewrite Gates. Choose 2

paragraphs to improve by adding

specific details.

Show don’t TellGetting better ideas

MetaphorsSensory Elements

StoriesAllusionsDialogue

Word Choice

5

7

9

Sometimes uses cliches or is too wordy. Can lack clarity or

misuse words. Lacks sophistication and surprise.

Mostly avoids cliche and wordiness. Generally clear.

Vocabulary is correct though perhaps not yet academic.

Almost every sentence uses surprising, erudite

vocabulary.

Read out loudGetting better Word Choice

Attack verbs firstCut back uselessness

Judiciously use thesaurus

Balance

I had a bad cold. In point of fact, it was horrible. I

was sick as a dog and stuck on my couch

forever. I went through a gazillion Kleenex and

coughed and sneezed all day.

Make this better

Onto QuestionPress

Voice

5

7

9

The writer behind the words is barely evident. Writing seems

colorless and unispired.

A clear personality is present in the writing. The elements

of writing comnbine to imbue the diction with energy.

The writer behind the words is revealed as an intriguing,

unique individual.

Neal Stephenson SnowCrash

The Deliverator’s car has enough potential energy packed into its batteries to fire a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. Unlike a bimbo

box or a Burb beater, the Deliverator’s car unloads that power through gaping, gleaming,

polished sphincters. When the Deliverator puts the hammer down, shit happens. You

want to talk contact patches? Your car’s tires have tiny contact patches, talk to the asphalt

in four places the size of your tongue. The Deliverator’s car has big sticky tires with

contact patches the size of a fat lady’s thighs. The Deliverator is in touch with the road,

starts like a bad day, stops on a peseta.

Marianne Robinson

Gilead

I really can't tell what's beautiful anymore. I passed two young fellows on the street the other day. I know

who they are, they work at the garage. They're not churchgoing, either one of them, just decent rascally young fellows who have to be joking all the time, and

there they were, propped against the garage wall in the sunshine, lighting up their cigarettes. They're

always so black with grease and so strong with gasoline I don't know why they don't catch fire

themselves. They were passing remarks back and forth the way they do and laughing that wicked way

they have. And it seemed beautiful to me. It is an amazing thing to watch people laugh, the way it sort

of takes them over. Sometimes they really do struggle with it.

Vladmir Nabokov

Lolita

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue

taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet

ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always

Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might

have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom

by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that

summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.

PG Wodehouse Jeeves in the

Springtime

I don't know if you know that sort of feeling you get on these days round about the end of April and the beginning of May, when the sky's a light blue,

with cotton-wool clouds, and there's a bit of a breeze blowing from the west? Kind of uplifted

feeling. Romantic, if you know what I mean. I'm not much of a ladies' man, but on this particular

morning it seemed to me that what I really wanted was some charming girl to buzz up and ask me to

save her from assassins or something. So that it was a bit of an anti-climax when I merely ran into

young Bingo Little, looking perfectly foul in a crimson satin tie decorated with horseshoes.

Improving Voice

Know who you want to beChoose the details carefully Swerve from the expectedLearn the rules…then break them

Tell a story about losing your dog in the voice of TWO of these personas

•Optomistic and bubbly lover of life

•Wise-cracking cynical introvert

•Fearful worrier

•Sad, depressed fatalist

Organization

5

7

9

Over-reliance on predetermined essay

patterns.

Some variance within 5-paragraph style.

Uses organization for creative, artistic, and

intellectual effect.

Alternatives to the

5-paragraph Essay

SpatialChronological

Cause/EffectComparativeSome people think

—> I thinkAnecdote/Reflection

Conventions

5

7

9

Contains a substantial number of convention errors and /or

spelling mistakes

Mostly avoids errors, but is also somewhat simple.

Correctly uses a variety of sentence types, vocabulary

and punctuation.

Most Common Errors

Comma ErrorsPronoun AgreementRun-on SentencesSpelling Confused words

FragmentsModifiers

Parallelism

Final NoteWe are all apprentices in a craft

where no one ever becomes a master.”

—Ernest Hemingway

Education

Learning to write good