Moving from Narrative to Persuasion Essay Basics While Workshopping the Process of Writing Dr. L. Lennie Irvin San Antonio College San Antonio Writing

Moving from Narrative to PersuasionEssay Basics While Workshopping the Process of Writing

Dr. L. Lennie IrvinSan Antonio CollegeSan Antonio Writing Project

Theoretical Underpinnings and Goals of this Assignment

Building on students’ natural capacity for making meaning with language (Berthoff)

Writing assignments that mesh with cognitive development and a growing ability for abstraction (Moffett)

Teaching writing as a process and activity

Increasing students awareness of audience and rhetorical stance

L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College

From Narrative to Argument/PersuasionMoffett’s curriculum ascending the ladder of abstraction

Theorizing—the argumentation of what will, may happen

Generalizing—the exposition of what happens

Reporting—the narrative of what happened

Recording—the drama of what is happening


Argument

Exposition

Narration

Description

My Sequence of Assignments

building toward the higher level analysis and argumentation of college writing

Narration/Description—The Family Story Illustration—The Illustrative Essay

Analysis Argumentation/Persuasion


Write from reading & research

Write from experience

The Illustrative Essay: From Narration to Argument/Persuasion Story

close observation, detail, descriptive techniques, showing and not telling, sequence, narrative form

Illustration makes point (thesis-driven); essay form (point-support) builds concept of “showings support” through

exemplification using stories to illustrate (show, prove, exemplify,

support) added rhetorical layers of purpose and audience

(purpose driven) Argumentation/persuasion (theorizing) that builds on

generalizing and reporting


Elastic Kernels: Moving from Narrative to Expository or Persuasive Writing Bernabei and Hall’s similar

approach to build other kinds of writing from narrative

from “what happened”to

“what happens” or “what should happen”


Assignment Goal #1:Teaching the Basics of Essay Form Introduction Body—dividing up the proof Conclusion

Essay Form Organization—put only one primary support per Body

paragraph (in this case, one story/example per body paragraph)

Introductions


Assignment Goal #2:Encountering the Writing Situation –What do I want to say? (message)

–Who do I want to say it to? (audience)

–Why do I want to say it to them? (purpose) What do I want them to see, think, feel, or do when or after they read

my text?

--When/Where am I saying it? (occasion) Within what circumstance or context?


Images of the Writing Situation


James Kinneavy’s Communication Triangle, A Theory of Discourse

Images of the Writing Situation


Mike Palmquist’s “Social Model of Writing” | Writing@CSU


Assignment Goal #3:Encountering the Writing Process


Looping Through the Writing Cycle Invention exercise(s)

Draft 1—zero draft Peer Response 1 Writing Review 1 (reinvention)

Draft 2—development draft Peer Response 2 Writing Review 2 (reinvention)

Draft 3—final draft Peer Response 3

(Writer’s Chair; celebrate writing)

Writing Review 3

--modeling/lessons at various places along the way

Brainstorming: The Power of Heuristics

A heuristic is any form or procedure that leads to knowledge

prompting thinking!

A sequence of questions that lead a student along a path of consideration (they might not otherwise have gone down)

Infoshots from Gretchen Bernabei are examples of heuristics



Kenneth Bruffee and Peer Response“Collaborative Learning and the ‘Conversation of Mankind’”

Social construction of knowledge

“…our task [as writing teachers] must involve engaging students in conversation among themselves at as many points in both the writing and the reading process as possible, and that we should contrive to ensure that students’ conversation about what they read and write is similar in as many ways as possible to the way we would like them eventually to read and write. The way they will talk to each other determines the way they will think and the way they will write” (400)


Assignment Goal #4:Peer Groups/Writing Workshop Beat Not the Poor Desk, Marie Ponsot and

Rosemary Dean Making observations and

separating them from inferences Peter Elbow and Pat Belanoff

Sharing and Responding my guide on peer response


Assignment Goal #4:Writing Reviews (and Rhetorical Reflection)

A chance for writers "between the drafts" to think and strategize on paper about where they are in working on a piece of writing and where they plan to take it.

These writing pieces ask writers to consider feedback they have received, stand back and look at their writing, and gain some perspective. These self-evaluations prompt students to consider their draft in light of what they conceive to be the goal or success on this essay assignment.

From this consideration and evaluation, writers generate plans and strategies for productively revising their essay to better reach the goals of the particular assignment.


Writing Activity:Illustrative Essay Invention


Viewing Student Examples


How Might You Use This Writing Activity in With Your Own Classes?

Documents

Moving from Narrative to Persuasion Essay Basics While Workshopping the Process of Writing Dr. L. Lennie Irvin San Antonio College San Antonio Writing