disc-reading

Reading in Discovery Grove

Using Prompts or Guidelines for Brainstorming Topics

Using Readings as Springboards for Thinking

Setting up your computer screen so you can move back and forth between the Writers' PLACE and your word processing program.

Using Prompts or Guidelines for Brainstorming Topics

Every term students tell me that open-ended free-writing and mapping do not help them find topics for future papers. If this is so for you too, you might want to use the following guidelines as part of your discovery writing.

1. Get comfortable. Either open your word processor or bring your favorite pen and paper here so that you can write as you read and think.

2. Blast through Writer's Block first. Do you want to view the PowerPoint slide presentation, "Blasting through Writer's Block"?

3. What do you want to write? What is your assignment? Are there any parts of the assignment that you do not understand? Write down the questions you should ask your teacher to clarify the assignment.

4. Does your assignment limit your choice of topics? If so, keep these limitations in mind as you think about the rest of these questions that will help you explore the areas where your interests and concerns may intersect with your assignment.

5. If you weren't in school right now, what you rather be doing? Tell the story of the best time you ever had doing this activity? What was the worst time? What did you learn from that experience.

6. Are you an expert at anything? Do you know a lot about computers, health, fitness, books, films, art, travel, science, history, math, sports? What do you know that you could share with some readers?

7. Make a list of your hobbies.

8. How do you spend your free time?

9. Make a list of the sports (music, art, crafts, games, etc.) you like to play.

10. Make a list of the sports (films, performers, entertainment, etc.) you like to watch.

11. For one full day keep a log of the topics you talk about with your friends.

12. The last time you argued with someone, what was the issue?

13. If you could make one change this term, what would you change (about yourself, home, school, work, community...?) Why? How? Who could help you?

14. What problems are bothering you right now? Describe at least one problem you wish you could resolve.

15. If you've been brainstorming on the computer, make sure you've saved your notes to your disk. Now read over what you have written. What word, phrase or idea is most interesting to you? Write that at the top of a new page. You will come back to this topic later and begin your next writing session here, at the top of this new page. This is the end of your brainstorming session.

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Using Models

In addition to using readings as prompts for writing, we also use readings as models. We learn to write poetry by studying poems -- how the poet uses language in that form to create meaning, i.e., to communicate an idea or experience. Likewise, in college writing courses, we can study models of discovery writing, essays, webs, arguments, reports, research papers, process memos, cover letters and portfolios. You will find these models in each area of the Writers' PLACE. Here is a model for a process memo about discovery writing.

Model: Student Memo

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Using Readings as Springboards for Thinking

We might use readings as springboards for thinking and writing. When we read with our minds fully engaged in the text, we read interactively. We first create meaning from the text; then we analyze and evaluate what the text is saying. We study this new information in the context of what we already know and have experienced with the topic. Sometimes we want to argue with the text. At other times, what an author says might remind us of something else, and we mentally wander off on our own tangent. This kind of thoughtful reading becomes most interesting when we encounter a sudden insight, make a new and startling connection, discover new knowledge. This makes us want to write, so that we can share this new insight or discovery with others. The reading we have done becomes a springboard for writing. Here is a reading list to explore in Discovery Grove.

You may also want to view a slide presentation on Reading.

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Reading about Discovery Writing

Cameron, Julia.: The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1992.
Dorough, Donna K.: "Mapping for Understanding: Using Concept Maps as Windows to Students' Minds." The Science Teacher Jan. 1997: 36.
Elbow, Peter and Pat Belanoff.: A Community of Writers. (2nd ed.) New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995, 99-121.
Goldberg, Natalie.: Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. Boston: Shambhala, 1986.
Gorrell, Donna.: "Central Question for Prewriting and Revising." Teaching English in the Two-Year College. Feb. 1996: 34-38.
Murray, Donald M.: "Write What You Don't Know." The Writer May 1998: 7. (Available on-line).
Reynolds, Mark.: "Make Free-Writing More Productive." College Composition and Communication 39 (Feb. 1988):81-82.

You may want to set up your computer screen so you can move back and forth between this page and your word processing program.

To do this, I suggest that you read all the way through the next few steps and then follow the steps in order:

1. Minimize this window by clicking on the button with the single line ( _ ) in the upper right corner of your screen. Then this page will disappear to the bottom of your screen where you will see a new bar-shaped button.. This page is still open; you've just reduced its size so it is out of the way. You can bring it back by clicking on the bar. Try it. Bring it back and then reduce it again.

2. Open Word or the word processing software of your choice. You will have two windows open now. You will be able to move back and forth between them by selecting the appropriate button that appears at the bottom of your screen.

3. Read the guideline or prompt here on this page, then go to your word processing window to write your response. Move back and forth between the two windows, reading and writing. As you move back and forth, remember to SAVE what you've written each time you leave your Word window to read the next prompt here.

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