Navigating the Prompt

The prompt is as much a part of the assignment as the paper itself.

Navigating a prompt can seem daunting to a student, but some simple guidelines, that can be applied to most assignment descriptions, can help. An action plan, leading to the paper’s action plan, is not so daunting because it is based on common sense questions:

  • Did I read it? Read it-all the way through, before anything else.
  • What is the overall objective of this assignment? The prompt probably contains a statement to that effect. Highlight or label it.
  • What are the “givens,” the technical stuff? Make a list of to-dos, such as length, style, due date, etc. These become a simple checklist. Save it the for last, after the work is done. (Don’t wrap the box before the present is inside.)
  • Who is the audience? Who, other than the instructor, are you writing for? (This might be a real audience, or it might be a “made-up”one for the purposes of the paper. Either way, it doesn’t matter; it gives you focus, and helps you strategize.)
  • What is this? Highlight anything that just isn’t clear or doesn’t make sense, and ASK. (The teacher and/or the writing center are there to help.)
  • What materials will I need (research, texts, etc.)?
  • Are there any special rules or exceptions for this assignment (e.g. an author’s note, or an exception to an MLA or APA rule, etc.) If not, then forget about it.

Get all these things “sorted,” as they say in England, then, think about a tentative thesis, and finally, begin that outline. Breaking it down into bits, eliminates the scary. They’re just things to do.

Here’s some more detailed information from Purdue and UNC:

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/688/01/

http://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/understanding-assignments/

 

The Three Index Cards

One of the most challenging times for a student, especially in a First Year Writing course, or in any class with writing, is navigating the assignment., Often, they don’t think about doing a critical reading of the assignment description, or annotating it, like any other text they encounter. And, oftener still, they don’t ask for help when they are confused.

Several years ago, I came up with a simple activity to get them to talk with each other about the assignment itself. It takes three index cards, and something from which they can be drawn, like a bag, or a cap, or envelope.

After they have read over the assignment description (say for a paper), and the instructor has gone over it, the index cards are employed to get them talking about the doing of the work:

  1. Each student gets a card.
  2. On the lined side of the card, they write the single thing about the assignment they think will be the most challenging. Ask them to be concise and write only that one thing.
  3. All the cards go back in the bag.
  4. Then, everyone draws a new card.
  5. They then respond to what the card says. This could be identifying with the concern, an answer, or suggestions, etc.
  6. The cards go back in the bag.
  7. Each student draws a new card.
  8. This time, on the blank side, the last student builds on what the first two have said.
  9. The third student presents to the class. They read the original concern, the response, and then what they wrote to build on it.
  10. Discussion will begin organically because others will want to respond, etc.; the instructor just needs to guide it.

This not only gets them taking abut the paper they must write, but about studying/writing/reading habits that work, and it eases some of that tension about “looking dumb,” or that “everyone but me gets it” feeling they might have.

Living Words

I often find myself giving students this note: “Anything occurring in a text (print, digital, or visual) is referred to in the present tense because it is “living” in an ongoing present. Shakespeare is dead, but you would still say, ‘In Rome & Juliet, he writes…’”

The late Brenda Ueland inspired me as a young writer. I have always tried to incorporate much of what she says when encouraging student writers. Ueland encapsulates her advice for writers at the end of If You Want to Write, and I have taken the liberty of passing on the highlights. She advises:

“To sum up—if you want to write:

  1. Know that you have talent, are original and have something to say.
  2. Know that it is good to work…
  3. Write freely, recklessly, in first drafts.
  4. Tackle anything you want to—novels, plays, anything. Only remember Blake’s admonition: ‘Better top strangle an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.’
  5. Don’t be afraid to write bad stories [or essays, or papers.]
  6. Don’t fret or be shamed of what you have written in the past… It is so conceited and timid to be ashamed of one’s mistakes. Of course they are mistakes. go on to the next.
  7. Try to discover your true, honest, untheoretical self…
  8. Remember how wonderful you are…
  9. if you are never satisfied with what you write, that is a good sign…
  10. Don’t be afraid of yourself when you write. Don’t check-rein yourself…
  11. Don’t always be appraising yourself, wondering if you are better or worse than other writers…”

Pretty good advice, for the classroom, the writing center…the mirror.

Brenda Ueland wrote these words in 1938, but her wisdom, indeed, lives in an ongoing present.

Works Cited

Ueland, Brenda. If You Want to Write, a Book about Art, Independence and Spirit. Graywolf. 1987.

 

Some Thoughts on “Academic Writing”

The semester has just begun. I cannot help but think of the new Freshmen because I have taught First Year Writing for the last three years. On the first day of class, I always ask them to write their definition of ”academic writing.” The usual answers are things like, “it’s more formal… it is precise…it is better language…” then, we talk about the definitions of ”formal, precise, and better.”

I give them an example from Q’s Legacy, by one of my favorite writers, Helene Hanff. She tells the story of how she, “wanted instruction in how to read and write English” (7). She went to the library, and discovered Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch’s On the Art of Writing. In it, he offers two sentences, one jargon, and one “good English prose”:

He was conveyed to his residence in an intoxicated condition.

He was carried home drunk.

Guess which one most of them choose. We then begin the discussion on “academic writing” and Standard American English, how good writing is not good mechanics, as well as an assortment of myths that need busting. L. Lennie Irvin talks about this in “What is ‘Academic’ Writing?”. He advises: “ Your success with academic writing depends upon how well you understand what you are doing as you write and then how you approach the writing task” (3).

Finding a voice for academic writing is a challenge to navigate, especially as a Freshman. Oftentimes, students are sure they are terrible writers, or they are superb, depending on their previous knowledge and experiences. The answer for each student is different. But, learning to write with more confidence makes a space for your academic voices (yes, there are more than one) to flourish. Here are some ideas on writing with confidence.

Works Cited

Hanff, Helene. Q’s Legacy. Penguin Books, 1985.

Irvin, L. Lennie. “What is ‘Academic’ Writing?”. Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1. Edited by Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky, Parlor Press, 2010, pp. 3-17.

Writing Exercise: Mimicry, Part 2

My last post was an introduction to the use of mimicry in writing as a tool for developing a writer’s voice. In this second half of the posted exercise, we’re going to try our hands at being copycats…for the sake of art.

If you’ve never done an imitation writing exercise before, granting yourself permission to be a hack may prove to be the first challenge. That fear of God that rises inside of a writer in near brushes with plagiarism is real—it serves the practical purposes of safeguarding work and respecting territory—and it can get in the way of allowing yourself the freedom to experiment. So, repeat with me: “I’m going to copy. I’m going to steal from talented writers.” You’re also not going to pass off a floundering word substitution exercise as a submission for The Atlantic (or for a class, unless your professor understands and agrees with your method!), so rest assured that you’re just flexing some underused muscles and testing your limits for the purposes of an exercise.

There are multiple approaches to imitation or mimicry exercises—you can substitute clauses while retaining punctuation, you can swap out words, and some writers even find value in transcribing text word-for-word to get a feel for the motion and rhythm of the original work. I’m going to select a passage and do my best to adhere to a rough sentence structure and theme. Feel free to play along with this passage or one of your own choosing.

  1. I’m giving myself a real humdinger of a complex and beautiful passage from Olga Grushin’s novel The Dream Life of Sukhanov:

“And slowly, as more recollections claimed him, all the accidentally intercepted glances and bitten lips and bright, insincere intonations slid into place, all the uncertainties were made certain, all the blank spots colored—and by the time Belkin turned to him with a new glass of colorless tea, he finally knew the truth, and his whole young past with Nina, with its sleepless rambles through the city, its flights of happiness, its ecstatic dreams, shifted, changed in time, became dimmer, sadder, more transparent, and at the same time more real” (2005).

Seriously. Isn’t that an incredible sentence?

  1. My second step is to identify the highlights of the passage, and I encourage you to do the same for a passage that you’ve selected. Here’s what I love about the excerpt from above and its author: Grushin is a pro at dragging the reader through her characters’ critical emotional crossroads, especially the ones where the unexpected barrels through and blindsides characters. Here, the anxiety is mounting as the main character of the novel sorts through memories of his wife and best friend, each recollection being tinted with a new sense of loss and betrayal in light of a freshly uncovered, disturbing truth about an enduring, clandestine love. The passage has a dizzying motion to it due to the movement from present to past to present to past to present, all while memories and reality are shifting. In the context of the story, the dizziness mirrors the physical and mental state of the unsteady main character, Sukhanov.
  1. Now for the hard part. Mimicking. Here’s my very basic shot at it (try your own, as well!):

Steadily, with a stream of regrets flooding her, all the paths she could’ve walked and canvases left untouched became rising, swift waters, all the wasted moments were droplets, all her talents were wind—and by the time Anna looked to her reflection, a pallid wash crossed with fine, worn tributaries, she realized that her youth, with its tired excuses, its manic spurts of partial paintings, its sullen dry spells, was lost, starkly barren, a fossilized, unchangeable history of inertia.

My aim for the exercise was to get a feel for Grushin’s structure, so I copied that as best as I could. I also wanted to fluctuate between past and present and stick with the themes of discovery and loss. The outcome is vastly different from anything that I would ordinarily write, and it’s refreshing and challenging to grapple with a complex structure when I gravitate toward a more straightforward, conversational style. What did I learn? This type of structure is really effective for engaging a reader in something that is typically boring to witness in real life: picturing a person untangling thoughts. The structure allows you to both see the person and experience revelations with that person. That’s one of the greatest beauties of writing, isn’t it?

I encourage you to test out a new style to see what can be learned and to push yourself out of the comfort zone. The process might bring about new themes for your work as well as adding variety to tired sentence structures, and it will certainly add dimension to your voice.

Writing Exercise: Mimicry, Part I

A writer’s voice is an ever-changing product of practice and exposure to others’ work. Much in the same way that we carry with us a gesture, a mannerism, a charm from each person who has influenced us in life, writers absorb structures, themes, cadences, and lyricism from authors. These essential adoptions in daily reading and writing practices add dimension to the timbre of writers’ voices and invite us to revisit classics and seek out new authors as part of our growth.

For novice writers, developing a voice is a critical challenge; some novices shift rapidly through styles and avoid cultivating a unique and mature voice while others stick with what they know and remain underdeveloped, firmly situated in a comfort zone. It can be hard for young poets, for example, to land confidently in a new verse structure. (If couplets are your cup of tea, why switch and brew up misery?) And it can be easy to write off a style without trying it out. Some fit like gloves while others seem to be shoes on the wrong feet. Growth. It’s a necessary, painful, and experimental stretch that can be eased through intentional development of voice. Enter the art of mimicry. Tell us all about it, T.S. Eliot:

One of the surest of tests is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest. Chapman borrowed from Seneca; Shakespeare and Webster from Montaigne. (“The Sacred Wood,” 1921)

According to Eliot, it isn’t so much about whether or not a writer will take from the masters (that’s a given, and you’re likely doing it to a degree without noticing); his test of a writer’s worth hinges on the quality and uniqueness of the resulting work. It takes exposure to great work and experience to develop into the “good poet,” and a writing practice that centers on absorption can take writers from the immature imitator to the master with a unique voice.

The first step of absorbing great work is analysis. All writers benefit from analyzing the work of influential authors—it doesn’t matter if you’re a poet looking to a novelist or a journalist looking to a screenwriter. Here’s an exercise to encourage you to seek out those who inspire you, and then I hope you’ll take some time to reflect on their work.

  • Identify a favorite author and one work from that author.
  • Identify what appeals to you about the author’s writing. Theme? Sentence structure? Narrative arc? Character development? Explore what is appealing about the handling of the identified elements.
  • Identify what doesn’t appeal to you or something that rings untrue in the work. What’s going on in the work at those turns?

Eventually, you’ll want to identify a sentence or paragraph that is particularly striking to you. Bookmark that page! We’re going to need that excerpt for the exercise that will be in my next post, “Writing Exercise: Mimicry, Part II.”

Featured Resources: Writer’s Block

Comedian Steve Martin once said, “Writer’s block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they can have an excuse to drink alcohol.” We know he was joking (isn’t Steve Martin always joking?) because anyone who has written as many books, magazine pieces, and plays as he has cannot have avoided writer’s block.

What is writer’s block? (Psych students, hold off—it’s not in the DSM.) Feel free to self-diagnose. Can’t figure out how to get started? Do you repeatedly write a line and then delete it in disgust? Have you found yourself in the middle of a paper without any idea of what you’re doing there? Sure, you have writer’s block! Here are some resources to help.

Overcoming Writer’s Block: This Writing Center handout suggests that maybe, if you’re stuck, you need to read your sources a bit more carefully, do some prewriting to develop your purpose and strategy, or work with a consultant in the Writing Center.

How to Crush Writer’s Block: This episode of Austin’s own Two Guys on Your Head podcast investigates the psychological and emotional reasons why writers get stuck and how they can get unstuck.

And finally, the Writer’s Block Instant Cure:

Follow any of this advice and you’ll be writing fluently again in no time. Happy writing!

Campus Publications at St. Edward’s University

Do you want to publish your art or writing? Do you enjoy reading the work of others and talking about writing? Do your friends always ask you to help proofread their papers? Getting involved in a campus publication is a great way to get some résumé-building experience with writing, editing, design, publishing, and even marketing and event planning.

Following is a list of campus publications at St. Edward’s, with links for more information. Note that each publication has different guidelines, policies, schedules, and needs, and most are staffed by students and faculty who juggle many responsibilities. If you want to get involved, be sure to read the information on the publication’s website, if it has one, and be respectful and professional when emailing publication staff. (Here are Five Tips for Better Email.)

  • Arete, published annually in print, is the university’s academic journal. Submission guidelines are on the web.
  • Cabra is a student-run fashion magazine on the web. For contact information, see the Masthead section of the website.
  • Hilltop Views is the campus newspaper, which publishes in print and online. To learn how to get involved, see the Contact Us and Submission links at the bottom of the website.
  • J-Source: A St. Edward’s Undergraduate Research Journal is the faculty-edited journal of SOURCE (Symposium on Undergraduate Research and Creative Expression), an annual event. For more information, contact Dr. Victoria Hill.
  • New Literati is an arts and literary journal published online and in print. See the journal’s website for contact and submission information.
  • Pangaea: Global Connections  is an online journal publishing student perspectives on global issues and processes. For more information, contact Charles R. Porter, Jr., MLA.
  • The Sorin Oak Review, published annually in print, is an established arts and literary journal at St. Edward’s. Visit the website for contact and submission information.

If you have information to add to this list, please email us at writingcenter@stedwards.edu.

How to be a graduate-level writer

New graduate students often wonder how writing in grad school is different from undergraduate writing. The brief answer is that it’s more in-depth and more complex: graduate-level writing often requires more research, more synthesis, more attention to craft, and more time than college writing does. In grad school, you’re expected to actually contribute to the “conversations” in your discipline or field, so you’re often writing about real people and real problems—with real consequences.

So how do you do that kind of writing? There are five practices you can adopt to help yourself become a graduate-level writer:


How to Be a Graduate-Level Writer – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

Writers on Writing on YouTube

Need inspiration for your writing weekend? Here’s our Youtube playlist of writers talking about writing: