prewriting

Prewriting: Find a place where a number of people are engaged in various activities. You might find this lively activity at a party, a garage sale, a bus station, an airport, on a bus, at an auction, or in a classroom. Carry your notebook and pen or bring your laptop so you can take notes on what people are doing and what their relationships are with each other. Be sure to note briefly all the following:

• Where each person is and what position he or she is in (sitting, standing straight, bent over, walking rapidly, etc.)
• How the person looks (age, dress, expression, and so on.)
• When the person is acting (meanwhile, a little later, afterwards, and so on).
• What the person is doing at that moment (pointing, looking behind, and so on).

Remain for a short time, not more than fifteen or twenty minutes. Don’t try to write everything down; trust your memory for many of the details, but record enough clues so that you won’t forget them.

Writing, Revising, Editing, and Publishing: As soon as possible after leaving the scene, sit down and organize your description of what you observed, adding the details you didn’t record. Describe the setting briefly; then tell what you saw in a time sequence, from beginning to end. Use as many of the senses as you can; include sounds, smells, movement, as well as sights.

Purposefully make this lengthy; record everything you noticed and remembered. Make certain that you write an introduction, at least one (but hopefully more) body paragraph, and a conclusion.

Now, rewrite your description with emphasis on economy. Review the lesson discussion and Chart 9 for ways to economize. Also, remember to use Chart 2 and Chart 3 to prepare you final essay. (26 points)

Your instructor will be grading you on these key points: Did you… include sense impressions other than sight? (4 points) write a beginning, middle, and end? (9 points) organize the details in sequential order from beginning to end? (5 points) use some of the techniques to achieve economy in writing? (4 points) edit according to Chart 2? (2 points) edit according to Chart 3 ? (2 points)