In-Class Activity: Support and Development

ENGL 4057/5057 Writing: Theory & Teaching

Weds, Jan 25, 2012

(O'Donnell, ETSU, First-year composition course materials)

"Support and Development" in writing is the use of specific information and details. In class, we discussed the first few paragraphs of the following narrative essay. The writing there is chock full of proper nouns and numbers, as well as dialogue:

- "Girl Meets Bluegill: How I (Nearly) Taught My Daughter to Love Fishing."  Bill Heavey. Field and Stream, August 2005.  www.fieldandstream.com/articles/bill-heavey/2005/08/girl-meets-bluegill. Accessed January 2012. (Click here for a cached version.)

In teams of two:

1) Exchange drafts with your team-mate.

2) On the first page of the draft, circle all proper nouns, and all numbers.

3) When you're finished, confer with your team-mate. Who has the most proper nouns and numbers? Are there any obvious omissions? Are there too many proper nouns and/ or numbers?

Be prepared to discuss with the class as a whole.