Moving from Narrative to Persuasion

Essay Basics While Workshopping the Process of Writing

Dr. L. Lennie Irvin San Antonio College San 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/Persuasion

Moffett’s curriculum ascending the ladder of abstraction

Theorizing

—the argumentation of what will, may happen Argument

Generalizing

—the exposition of what happens

Reporting

—the narrative of what happened

Recording

—the drama of what is happening Exposition Narration Description L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College

My Sequence of Assignments  building toward the higher level analysis and argumentation of college writing     Narration/Description— The Family Story Illustration—The Illustrative Essay Write from experience Analysis Argumentation/Persuasion Write from reading & research L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College

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 L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College

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” L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College

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 L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College

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?

L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College

Images of the Writing Situation

James Kinneavy’s Communication Triangle,

A Theory of Discourse

L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College

Images of the Writing Situation

Mike Palmquist’s “Social Model of Writing” | Writing@CSU L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College

Assignment Goal #3: Encountering the Writing Process L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College

Looping Through the Writing Cycle

 Invention exercise(s)  Draft 1— zero draft   Peer Response 1 Writing Review 1 (reinvention)  Draft 3— final draft   Peer Response 3 (Writer’s Chair; celebrate writing) Writing Review 3  Draft 2— development draft  Peer Response 2  Writing Review 2 (reinvention) --modeling/lessons at various places along the way L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College

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 L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College

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) L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College

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 L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College

Assignment Goal #4:Writing Reviews (and Rhetorical Reflection)  A chance for writers they plan to take it.

"between the drafts"

to think and strategize on paper about where they are in working on a piece of writing and where  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.

L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College

Writing Activity: Illustrative Essay Invention

L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College

Viewing Student Examples

L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College

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

L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College