Write a Perfect Page Assignment

Don't be squirrelly about this assignment

Write a Perfect Page

"Midterm" Assignment

For the second writing assignment this term, we will be doing a streamlined version of the writing guide you received (as a .pdf file) before spring break. If you look through section two of the guide (Part Two: The Writing Process—Writing for Life), you will see that it lays out a complete approach to getting ideas, sketching them out, preparing outlines, and going through multiple drafts and revisions of the writing process.

As I have noted often in class, a number of students over the years have followed every detail of the guide. To a person, every single one (including several who are non-native speakers of English) has become an extraordinarily strong writer. Frustrated that the vast majority of students have not even given it a try, I have determined that we will go through the process not for a full-length paper, but rather for the creation of one page. 

As you know, we began the process in-class during Week 12. Here, though, I will take you through the whole process, If you have missed parts of it, you have time to get back on-track. The goal, in the end, is for you to write a "perfect" page, using the skills you gain from the writing guide from start to finish.

All page numbers refer to Writing, History, and Culture: History and Anthropology in the Deep Forests of Grammar and Composition (the writing guide).

[Work to be done during Week 11]

[1] As explained on page 25, put your main idea in the center, and then add a series of "spokes" on your outline with linked ideas. Try to put no fewer than six spokes, and preferably eight or more of them.

[2] Next, looking at page 26, add details for each of the spokes. In other words, do for each of the smaller spokes what you did in your first version. Spend some time on this. Every detail that you can add will make your upcoming work easier. Now, set it aside for a little while.

[3] Next, add even more detail to those previous details. Again, try to fill the page. If you do so, you will have the entire architecture of your writing project ready.

[4] This next step is perhaps the most important of all. Look at pages 27-28. Now, for every one of your detailed spokes (look back at the example on the bottom of page 26), take a note card (I handed out 4 x 6 cards in class, and there are more outside my office door, MI 206) and do the following: First, write down the "header," as you see on the bottom of page 27. Then, working from the spokes of your outline, transform those details into sentences on your notecard. Write a notecard for each of your spokes.

This work was part of your Friday "lab work" for Week 11.

[5] Finally, "sort" the cards into an order that you feel works for you. There are no "rules" about what comes first and what next. Sometimes it helps to spread them out and just look at them for a while. It can even help to throw them in the air and then scoop them up in any order that just happens to end up in your stack (don't let one slip under the radiator, though). One way or another, determine the best order you can for a first draft.

If you wish, you can structure your cards into a full outline, as explained on page 29. For this assignment, though, it is not necessary.

Save your spoke outlines and notecards, and keep them together with your drafts (see below) to be turned in together at the end.

[Work to be done during Week 12]

[6] Skipping to page 31, sit down to write your first draft. Remember, you are, in the end, only writing one page, but save those cards for your final project. Have the cards in your ordered stack at your left (or right), and start writing text. Even if you are just copying your notecards, you should start to get the idea that the actual typing-in process is never really a matter of copying. Just get it started, and write a draft. If it is a bit longer than 300 words (even 600 or more), you will see that it is all part of the process.

Print and save all of your drafts, complete with markups.

[7] For your Friday work this week, please follow the "second draft" information beginning on page 36 and continuing to page 40. It is very important that you give this a try. You only need to do it once , but very few students ever learn that the key to all writing is the move from the first to the second draft. Please follow it in detail (just this once). Remember, you are only writing a few hundred words.

Print and save all of your drafts, complete with markups.

[8] Over the weekend, I would like you to write a third and a fourth draft, following the writing guide in detail. This is when writing gets fun. You are only writing a page, so please actually follow the guide, including typing in each draft anew (please just do it, if only once in your academic career).

Print and save all of your drafts, complete with markups.

[9] Do a few revisions if you wish. We will work on writing issues from there. Remember, a "revision" is not a "draft." The writing guide explains all of this in detail.

Print and save all of your drafts, complete with markups. Bring them all to class together on Monday, April 17.

Due on Monday, April 17 in class.