Ordering and Grouping, Organizing and Outlining English 21 – Ms. Brown

Presentation Outline

• What is ordering and grouping?

• What is organizing and outlining?

• How do I use an outline? Why is it helpful to my writing?

Ordering and Grouping What is grouping and ordering? How does it help for writing assignments?

Ordering and Grouping

1. Ordering helps us arrange our ideas in a logical way, chronological way, spatial way, or important way.

a. Logical order: big ideas to related ideas, A to B to C

b. Chronological order: morning to afternoon to evening, 1990 to 1995 to 2005

c. Spatial order: left to center to right, up to center to down, etc.

d. Order of importance: least important to most important

2. Ordering is used with points (your opinions) and examples supporting your opinions. You have the freedom to choose how you order information, but your order should be clear. In other words, your order should need no verbal explanation. Your audience will understand just by following the progression of your ideas.

Ordering and Grouping

1. Grouping allows you to place related ideas together. Placing related

ideas together is important so your audience does not become

confused by your paper. The reader is allowed to follow a smooth

progression from one point to related idea to another.

Ordering

• Take a look at your generated ideas from Activity 8, page 30

• How are you going to group these ideas?

• How are you going to order these opinions? Are you going to use:

Logical order

Chronological order

Spatial order

Order of importance

• For example…

How am I going to order the following opinions?

•Determined

•Giving

•Talented

Ordering

• In column 1, I would move in chronological order from his days as a community college football player to a professional in the NFL.

• In column 2, I would move in order of importance from what Rodgers does for the community, how his determination inspires others, to how talented he is as a quarterback in the NFL.

• Which one do you suggest as my audience?

Determined Giving

Talented Determined

Giving Talented

Column 1:

Time

Column 2:

Importance

Group ideas together for clarity! Butte Community College

UC Berkeley

Both of these ideas are related to school, so I’m going to group them together.

Now I am 1 example short, so I will brainstorm and add more.

I would then make sure that the examples for the remaining points (Talented and Giving) are also related to one another. I would group or completely eliminate* some options.

Eliminating occurs when an idea is unrelated or has no place in the paper. You simply throw out the idea. You may be able to revisit the idea during the revision process depending on how much your paper changes.

Chronological order: Determined Talented Giving

Grouping: Determined •School examples •Almost giving up example •NFL example

Ordering and Grouping

• To summarize:

• Ordering allows you to arrange your ideas in a specific way. You choose the order for your paper and the order should help the reader move from your first point to your last point smoothly.

• Grouping helps keep related ideas together. This prevents you from saying the same thing over and over again your papers. This also forces you to develop strong support to fill in any gaps once you have grouped related ideas.

• Keep in mind that ordering and grouping may not feel natural to you during prewriting. You should only begin to think about order AFTER you have generated ideas. No matter what, everyone should engage in ordering and grouping by the 4th step of the writing process. This step is called revision, and we will discuss in detail later.

Organizing and Outlining What is organizing and outlining? How does it help for writing assignments?

Organizing and Outlining

• We have covered in detail the first step of the writing process:

A. Prewriting (generating ideas): clustering, listing, questioning, freewriting

1. We practiced clustering earlier this week. You have your cluster with my comments.

2. You also completed the non-graded freewriting assignment.

• The second step of the writing process is:

B. Organizing and Outlining (bringing ideas together): tree method, outline form

1. If we do not use outlines, our papers may lack organization.

2. Outlines help us prepare to draft.

1. Should we always use them? Let’s watch this debate about outlines: http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/rewritingplus/aspx/Search1.aspx?bfw_topic=Organization&PageNum=0#$c0a84dda:9b601d121ea388654-7f4b

Organizing and Outlining

• An outline for a paragraph has 3 major sections:

1. Main Idea (what your paragraph is about)

2. Support Points (your opinions)

3. Examples (backing up your opinions)

• Let’s take a look at how I move my prewrite to an outline…

Outline

Main idea: I admire Aaron Rodgers.

Support point 1: Aaron Rodgers has always been

determined.

Examples: He started at Butte Community College,

worked hard, and eventually transferred to UC

Berkeley to become their starting quarterback. He

once thought about giving up football to go to law

school, but he chose instead not to quit. When Aaron

Rodgers joined the Green Bay Packers in the NFL,

he sat in Brett Favre’s shadow for a long time, but he

always believed he had the ability to lead the team.

This is Aaron Rodgers looking very determined. Very determined.

Look at that throwing arm! He’s got so much talent!

Outline

Support point 2: Aaron Rodgers is talented.

Examples: When he was 10 years old, he won a free

throw challenge in basketball. In addition to being

multitalented in different sports, he is the only

quarterback in the NFL to throw for 4,000 yards in his

first two seasons as a starter. In 2011, he took the

Green Bay Packers to win the Super Bowl.

Aaron Rodgers keeps it classy on and off the field by giving his time to worthy causes.

Outline

Support point 3: Aaron Rodgers is a giving person.

Examples: For two years from 2006-2008, he co-

hosted a charity golf tournament to help raise money

for cancer. In 2010, he partnered with a non-profit

called Twelve Days of Christmas to provide shopping

sprees for children in need. Most recently in 2012,

Aaron Rodgers partnered with the Make a Wish

Foundation to make a surprise visit to a fan suffering

from cancer.

Sample Outline

I. Main idea

II. Support point 1

I. Examples

III. Support point 2

I. Examples

IV. Support point 3

I. Examples

Prewriting vs. Outlining

What are the major differences between prewriting and outlining?

• Prewriting often does not

include:

• Complete sentences

• Structure (unless you use a cluster)

• Details

What are the major differences between prewriting and outlining?

• Outlining often uses:

• Complete sentences

• A structure based on your ordering

and grouping

• You will naturally add more details

to the outline since you are writing

in complete sentences.

Let’s Practice!

• Activity 15, pages 56-57

1. There are 5 different lists. Read each list and practice eliminating the sentence

that does not fit.

2. For the remaining sentences, think of a big idea (main idea) that connects them

and write it down as a complete sentence.

3. Add the remaining sentences in one of the following orders:

Logical order

Chronological order

Spatial order

Order of Importance