Core 1+4:
- Write on: Describe the writing process that you went through in order to create your draft of your first Ocean question answer.
- I write for the first paragraph. Everything a good piece of my writing has going for it is contained in the first few lines. The cadence, the flow, the humor, the ideas; they are all there. In writing the first paragraph, I give my writing life so that it may go forth and multiply. Fourteen first paragraphs later, my writing still seems flat and unimportant. But, this doesn’t faze me. I do not become flustered when the right words don’t come. This is my outline. This is where I list my grievances against the king. This is where I get lost and find myself time and again. I see my first paragraph through the hundreds of almost beginnings I leave behind my blinking cursor. It is there as I formulate what I’m going to write in paragraph three right after the quote and what I want my reader to question upon finishing a particularly well worded sentence. This is the process I chose, one which allows me to constantly backtrack and retabulate the sum of my ideas. I write for the first paragraph because it is the only way I know that works.
- Discuss “a perfect writing process” for you.
- Read your draft to a partner and ask for him/her to try and pick out the most and least specific/detailed parts of your response.
- Share out these most and least specific excerpts.
- How do you make something more specific?
- Extensions:
- Revise your least specific moments so that each one could have only been written by you.
Core 2:
I am a pen pulsing with ink. I am a whirring motor, well oiled and running fast. I am open door, swinging in a summer breeze. I am a wild dog, rabid for something good to feast on. I am a car right off the lot, shining chrome in everyone’s face. I am lightening, not thunder. I am the sweet afternoon ice cream that rolls around in your mouth with cream so smooth that it aches to swallow. I am a writhing pile of wind-up toys trying to come untangled. I am a bucket, a pail, a recycling bin; waiting desperately to use what others find unimportant. I am the single circular node, connecting all that I want with all that I am.
[flash http://s3.amazonaws.com/slideshare/ssplayer.swf?id=92669&doc=i-am-paragraph1983]
- Share-on: What is the best single idea/line that you put into your “I Am” paragraph? Why?
- Narrowing your focus to the single idea/line.
- Discuss the anecdote to support your best line.
- Tell your anecdote to at least one other person in your table group.
- Extensions:
- Write down your idea and anecdote in a paragraph.
Core 3:
I am a pen pulsing with ink. I am a whirring motor, well oiled and running fast. I am open door, swinging in a summer breeze. I am a wild dog, rabid for something good to feast on. I am a car right off the lot, shining chrome in everyone’s face. I am lightening, not thunder. I am the sweet afternoon ice cream that rolls around in your mouth with cream so smooth that it aches to swallow. I am a writhing pile of wind-up toys trying to come untangled. I am a bucket, a pail, a recycling bin; waiting desperately to use what others find unimportant. I am the single circular node, connecting all that I want with all that I am.
[flash http://s3.amazonaws.com/slideshare/ssplayer.swf?id=92669&doc=i-am-paragraph1983]
- Share-on: What are the best few ideas/lines that you put into your “I Am” paragraph? Why?
- Narrowing your focus to the truly important ideas of identity.
- What do you want to be identified with?
- How will you support your identity ideas?
- Anecdotes
- Examples
- Metaphors
- Extensions:
- Revise your identity document to include only the truly important ideas and at least one valid support.
