Craft of Writing: Parentheses

Last week I outlined a mini-lesson approach to The Craft of Writing and highlighted asyndeton as a literary device that could improve student writing craft. This approach involves giving students a sheet that outlines writing mechanics/devices and having them complete a six minute activity that targets said activity.

The first 'issue' of this Writology activity includes write-ups on using Tricolon (covered here), Asyndeton, and Parentheses. Here are the details for the last of these, parentheses:

Parentheses

What is it: Commonly known as brackets, parentheses are used to convey additional or supplementary information in a text. The Greek work parenthesis means "to place alongside."

Example:

• "Her voice, her laugh, her dress (something floating, white, crimson), her spirit, her adventurousness." - Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.

Why use it: 

• Parentheses are used to add supplementary detail to an idea without making it an essential part of the text. A section of text in parenthesis should be removable without changing the meaning of the sentence.
• Can work in the same way as an embedded clause or a footnote, the choice of which one to use can be determined by the length of the information included.
• Can be used to explain (or to clarify).
• Can be used to indicate the way something will be abbreviated in The Rest of The Text (TRTT).
• Also has a more mechanical purpose in academic contexts where it is used to include sources for quotes, indicate where text has been 'snipped out', or in plays in regards to stage directions/instructions for performance on the stage.

Quick Activity:
Write a paragraph where you imagine you are a snail facing an obstacle. Include the use of brackets (parentheses) at least twice. 

Tricolon

Below is the activity to go with tricolon. The activity for asyndeton was covered in the blog entry that was mentioned at the top of this article.

Quick Activity:  

Write an informative paragraph about your favourite meal. Include one example of tricolon. 

And here's all three writing elements on one sheet for student use:

• Writology Issue 1

Happy writing!

Craft of Writing: Asydenton

Module C: The Craft of Writing is undoubtedly the most different element of the new HSC syllabus and, as such, has understandably provoked the most anxiety. As we (the teachers) hurtle towards our first HSC exams based on said new syllabus there are a whole range of questions that are circling around the way Craft of Writing should be taught. 

One such question is: parallel to the other modules or as a module of its own?

Our school has opted to do it as a module of its own in Term 3, however, in preparing for this there's still a lot of room for building student efficacy in regards to their writing ability. One idea that I've taken to heart was Karen Yager's suggestion at the 2018 ETA Conference that we focus on short writing activities as a settling routine at the start of lessons. 

I love the idea of mini-lessons so I think this will work well or is at least an interesting approach to trial for 2019. I'm thinking the following routine will be a great starting point:

1. Introduce students to a writing device/element - this can be something they're already familiar with, or something that they're not. The important thing is that it's treated like something completely new and is explained in detail. I try not to assume anything when it comes to prior student knowledge.
2. Students read over how the writing device works and are then given a fairly open-ended 6 minute activity in which they must test it out. 

I try to match up the device with texts that the students are exploring in the other modules but this isn't absolutely necessary every time. I'm also not expecting the students to memorise these devices - what's important is that they test out using it in their own writing and see if it's a good fit for them. Not every student is a literary sophisticate; they aren't all reading voraciously (even if we yearn for them to!) so they won't have a subconscious command of literary and rhetorical devices at their disposal when writing. What we can do instead is expose students to a range of these devices in isolation and then let them apply them in the context of activities that will build their craft. This will stretch them as writers, regardless of whether they can memorise the obscure names that a lot of these devices go by.  

Here's one example of the information students would get:

Asyndeton

What is it: Essentially, this Greek word means "unconnected", and refers here to the removal of connective conjunctions from a sentence. Phrases are no longer joined by terms such as "and", "or", etc. 

Examples: 

• A character describing the nature of some families - "a Drinking Streak, a Gambling Streak, a Mean Streak, a Funny Streak" - To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
• "We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans" - Winston Churchill's 'We shall fight on the beaches' speech from WWII.

Why use it:

• Removing conjunctions such as 'and', 'for', 'or', and 'but' leads to increased emphasis/attention on particular verbs and nouns.
• It can give the impression of speed, or create an erratic and hurried rhythm.
• Often used in speeches and rhetoric to control the rhythm of words, and to force increased attention from the reader/listener as they are forced to consciously or subconsciously fill in the gaps with their own connectives.

Quick Activity:

Write a reflective paragraph about your morning that incorporates asyndeton.

Film Craft: Teaching Film as a Skill

Extract: 21st century learning practice in Australia has led to an increasing shift away from summative assessment of learning to the more authentic, project-based approach of assessment as learning. In regards to the study of film, this workshop demonstrates the ways in which frontloading of information and project-based learning can facilitate greater student efficacy in building skills for critical thinking, collaborative learning, and innovative problem-solving. Students move away from the identification and analysis of film techniques towards authentic application of cinematic skills in order to become active meaning-makers in regards to the grammar of film. The benefit of this multimodal approach to literacy demonstrates the continuing development of Project-Based Learning as the greatest tool at the disposal of teachers in striking an effective balance between the demands of the syllabus, enculturated practices dictated by policy, and the need to provide opportunities for students to cultivate competencies required in increasingly complex work spaces.

In other words, students learn to write film rather than write about it. This becomes evident through their application of learned skills in a collaborative project with their peers.

Here's my presentation on this from the ETA NSW 2017 Conference:

Resource: Film Craft PPT

Resource: Close-Up Instructions Activity Sheet  

Cross-Cutting resources:

Print on coloured paper. Students then edit the images together to create a storyboard sequence that incorporates too concurrent narratives. Thus, cross-cutting. See the PPT for more information.

More on specific film skills:

• Close-Ups blog post. 
• The 180 Degree Rule blog post.

For more detail, see the article 'Uncovering the Paradigm' in the academic journal English in Australia, Volume 52, No. 3.

Write Right: Authentic Engagement and Creative Writing

It's November 2017 and the English Teachers Association NSW Conference is underway once again, bringing hundreds of English teachers together to talk crafty writing, Stage 6, new continuums, and all things multimodal.

My colleague, Kira Bryant, and I are presenting today on using mini-lessons to build engagement with students in relation to creative writing.

Here are our resources:

Resource: Write Right PPT (our presentation)

Resource: Activity booklet (this accompanied our presentation)

*Please note that the activity booklet omits the short story 'Grandpa's Place' as this piece appears in Volume 2 of the ETA's Creative Writing textbook

Sizzling Starts

Jen McVeity, the passionate and engaging creator of the Seven Steps to Writing Success

The AATE/ALEA Cutting Edge conference has been a whirlwind adventure these last few days, with bravura performances from international keynote speakers like Dr. Steven L. Lang, Linda Hoyt, and Professor Elizabeth Birr Moje, and brilliant snapshots of the skills and understandings being taught across Australia by our own teachers and educational consultants.

One of the great 'snapshots' I got to experience today was Jen McVeity, the highly-esteemed creator and CEO of the Seven Steps to Writing Success - a model for chunking creative writing into discrete pieces to assist students with digesting skills for future use. The idea here is that:

Repetition makes writing skills into muscle memory.

As the session was a brisk 35 minutes long, McVeity used the time well to concentrate on just one of the 7 skills: Sizzling Starts. 

From the website, a sizzling start is described as "Start where the action is. Not at the beginning of the day where nothing is happening. Begin when the volcano starts oozing lava or as you walk in the door to the big disco competition". McVeity impressed this upon us in around three minutes before letting us try out some sizzling starts on our own. We were given five prompts with a minute each to write our attention-grabbing story beginnings. 

I decided (against my own better judgement) to undertake this activity by hand. 

I would describe my handwriting as resembling something a sloth would write if given a pen for the first time. Keep in mind that this sloth probably doesn't even know what words are. That's how my handwriting looks... I have a lot of trouble reading it even a few minutes after committing it to the page. 

But I digress. Here are the five prompts:

And here are my responses:

1. I burped and fire enveloped the dinner, my mum screaming as tendrils of flame rippled across her best tablecloth as if on a slick of oil.
2. Timmy cried as the shoe spun to a stop in front of him. His best friend Roger had just disappeared forever into the hollow of the tree. With a last gasp of hope, Timmy reached into the black yawning hole in the trunk.
3. My phone exploded once again. It was one of those days - the sort where the car won't start, your computer crashes, and the toilet decides to fill up to the brim rather than flush. I hate technology.
4. I never imagined I would be here, standing on this cliff. I'm afraid of heights but, you know what? A million dollars is a million dollars. Time to bungee-jump.
5. Everyone hated Matt the Brat, especially when they found bits of him in their chocolate bars. Ms. Treving never imagined the excursion would turn out like this. 

As you can see, there isn't much you can get done in 1 minute per response, however, the rapid-fire nature of the activity forced me to keep practising the same thing with little room for drifting off-topic. McVeity compared it to standing in front of the tennis ball launcher while practising your backhand - the ball is aimed right at you so that you only have to practise the hitting of the ball rather than moving around to meet it. The analogy she's making here is that this is the aforementioned scaffolding provided by the prompts and chunking.

Resource from the workshop

I think my last one about Matt the Brat is my best attempt at a sizzling start in the rapid-fire scenario. There's something about humourous cannibalism that works as a great attention-grabber in creative writing. Obviously, I can't start every story with a character ending up in food eaten by other kids but, you know, I think the spirit of a sizzling start is there! 

Steven L. Layne on Engaging Writers in the Classroom

Professor Layne in action

Steven L. Layne is an American educator and a professor at the Judson University in Illinois. He specialises in curriculum and literacy, and has written nearly 30 books (both fiction and non-fiction). Today I find myself sitting in front of Professor Layne at the AATE/ALEA Cutting Edge Conference in Hobart, Tasmania, as he talks about certain essential truths that get to the heart of how writing exists in the classroom.

He's an engaging presence, which is fitting when you consider that this session is called Engaging Writers in the Primary and Secondary Years, and he starts off his session by getting the room to judge a series of statements/questions on a continuum. The overall consensus from this room of teachers seems to be:

• Writing is one of the most complex subjects to teach.
• Writing is not a subject that most teachers are necessarily equipped to teach well.
• Strong writers have advantages that are significant in society.
• Writing tends to be very personal.
• Sharing writing requires a significant degree of vulnerability.
• Constructive criticism can feel like an attack on the writer (no matter if it's teacher or student).
• Kids don't necessarily see writing in school as an enjoyable activity.

One of the underlying subtexts here is that there's a dearth of methodology, and I guess this is where pedagogues like Professor Layne come in with ideas for explicit instruction of writing. 

He starts with the assertion that building a sense of community is the best way to facilitate efficacy among students. A writing community will assist with breaking down the barriers that prevent students from sharing their work (or even writing in the first place).

Some things that the Professor puts into place to encourage this are (and he gave this information to us teachers at the beginning of his session too, much to our collective relief):

• There will be no collecting of writing.
• He's not going to ask us to share our writing with the person next to us.
• We can trust him.
• We don't need to pull an idea out of thin air, so there is no pressure to come up with original ideas.
• If we have something on our mind to write about, we can do that.
• If we need a stimulus, there will be one available to use.

Professor Layne gave us a stimulus, a song called Ellsworth by a country band called Rascal Flats, which deals with Alzheimer's Disease. The guidelines above applied - we didn't have to follow the stimulus if we didn't want, but there was one interesting addition; the Professor used a document camera to show that he was writing too. 

This helped show us that we had become a writing community. I didn't actually read what he was projecting because I was also busy writing but the point is that it showed us he was writing too. That he was doing the exact same task.

It's a little dark, but that's Professor Layne in the left-hand corner writing while his hand is projected onto the screen.

Furthermore, students can become more comfortable in a classroom-community by being asked to come up the front to share their work (no matter how small). This will eventually become something that they're comfortable with, with the caveat that they never race away after reading (the Professor says this is akin to the student silently apologising for their work). Afterwards, the student/writer stays up the front where they can receive commentary from the class, however, it is important that the other students who give feedback are given time to contemplate directly afterwards before offering any such feedback. This allows for the thinkers to start gathering their thoughts, and means that the student who reads aloud doesn't ever walk away thinking that no one has anything to say (which can be damaging to their self-esteem). The teacher should also use this opportunity to give specific positive feedback, asking for a particular sentence or word or idea to be repeated or explained.

All of these things let the student-writer know that their work matters to this classroom-community. 

Another of Professor Layne's 'Top Tips':

TIP #2: Don't consistently ask students to write a complete piece - target an area and do substantial teaching, thinking, and discussing before assigning any writing. When you do assign something- assign only what is necessary to assess - and what has actually been taught.

For example, get students to focus on Thesis Sentences. Even in writing fiction, there should be a sentence or part that tells the reader what the piece if about. It focuses the text, and it isn't the same as a 'hook' or opener. We can target this skill by giving students a piece of writing, even just a paragraph, and ask them to trace what they were thinking while it was being read to them - what was the story about in their mind when they heard the first part, and then what was it about further into the piece, and at the end? 

From here, what does the student think the thesis sentence is?

Another approach is to give the students a prompt (EG. Identify the best TV show ever and give reasons to support this). Add to this 4-5 possible thesis sentences with various degrees of quality in response to the prompt. It's important to include off-topic thesis sentences and other statements that don't adequately respond to the prompt so that students can see what doesn't work.

Most importantly, this little lesson should be repeated many times with students writing their own statements. This way students have a real chance to learn it.

One of the presenter's books

Anyway, I enjoyed this workshop and got some really great ideas out of it. Thanks Professor Steven L. Layne!

Website: Steven L. Layne, Ed. D

Antimetabole: Rhetorical Technique in 1984

First thing's first: don't ask me to pronounce the name of this technique... is it an-time-tabool? An-tim-eh-ta-bol-ey? Anti-meta-burlie? Anyway, it's a mouthful, and thankfully students wanting to discuss it in an essay only need to know how to spell it rather than pronounce it.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I like to use a 'mini-lesson' approach when it comes to teaching new techniques in the classroom. This has been adapted from the work of American writing guru Nancie Atwell and WSU Education Researcher Wayne Sawyer, and allows for students to engage directly with the technique or literary device before placing it in context and developing a greater familiarity with it.

Antimetabole is a rhetorical device, and I'll note here that I've already spent significant time covering the persuasive genre of rhetoric with my Advanced English students before getting to this particular technique, which means that students already have contextual knowledge of what rhetoric is and how it works (and to what end). I cover this in passing with Year 10 students, and then in more detail when teaching Shakespearean language to Preliminary Advanced English for Othello.

At its most basic definition, antimetabole is when a phrase or clause is stated and then repeated in reverse order. A famous example is one used in a speech by American President John F. Kennedy:

"Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country"

Antimetabole can be used for a number of reasons:

• To call attention to certain key words.
• To hint that reality is not what it seems (illustrated by the reversal of words).
• To motivate/persuade an audience.
• When the first clause is spoken in a speech it may not be that noticeable, however, when the words are repeated in the next clause it immediately emphasises the elements that have been repeated. 
• It is a popular rhetorical device in political speeches, and is therefore used in literature to allude to political thought and intention. 
• It can sometimes seem confusing; forcing the listener or reader to re-examine the ideas therein.

An example from 1984, spoken by O'Brien during his interrogation of Winston:

"One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish the dictatorship"

Get the students look at the quote above and then answer the following questioning after being walked through the above definition and breakdown:

Question: What is Orwell's intention in using this rhetorical device here, and through this particular character?

Orwell actually uses a few examples of this rhetorical device in 1984, another that comes to mind is, "Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious". Rigorous teachers might also like to point out the paradoxical, Catch 22-like nature of this additional example. 

Resource: 1984 and Antimetabole

Teaching Theme with Year 9

My Harvest Home by John Glover

Imagine this. It's Week 1 of Term 1, and I have a class of 25-odd Year 9 students, fresh from their triumphant journey through Year 8, ready to face a new year with a new English teacher.

I stand at the front of the room. The first topic for the year is Poetry.

Crickets chirp.

Poetry can sometimes be a bit of a hard sell when it comes to teaching 14 year-olds. And these are students I've never taught before; it's Day One, Topic One. I don't know any of these kids yet. 

The weeks start rolling by. I've decided to focus on the Indigenous perspective of Australia as seen through the lens of poetry, drawing on ideas from this text:

The students respond well to it. We learn about some techniques, how to annotate a poem, and what context is: the time, the place, the reasons a poet might write a certain poem. But a bubbling and largely unacknowledged bassline rumbles under it all: theme. So I ask, What ideas are being communicated? 

My students look at me blankly.

High school English is a curious beast for students to come to grip with. Many come along in Year 7 quite well-equipped with knowledge of grammar, sentence construction, techniques... but one thing tends to remain elusive; what is a 'theme'? Even by Year 9 a lot of students are still trying to get their heads around it.

A theme is an idea, or a concept. The terminology here, like a lot of things in teaching, can be tricky because these words are used in different ways in different contexts. 'Concept' is now being used with a very specific purpose in the English Textual Concepts framework, so it's probably best to steer clear of this term. I actually also prefer to avoid the term 'theme' because 'theme' can have specific connotations relating to grammar and music, but it's a term that's quite difficult to get away from in English due to its ubiquity. 

So I try to stick to 'idea' for the most part, though I am guilty of reverting back to theme with grades 7-9. The materials here refer to 'theme'. 

Back to the point of this blog: my Head Teacher has been liaising with Wayne Sawyer from Western Sydney University over the last 8 months as part of a research project concerning mini-lessons (a teaching phenomenon pioneered by Nancie Atwell in the U.S.), so I've taken this approach to teach theme. 

The PowerPoint presentation is just two slides. The first slide explains what a theme is, and students can make a few notes about it if you like. Then the next slide is a 1835 painting by John Glover called My Harvest Home. 

The point of using a painting in a poetry unit is to drive home the transcendent nature of a theme. I want the students to make connections between different kinds of texts with the theme as the common factor. By examining different mediums that explore the same idea, students should hopefully be able to identify this one common factor that stands out. My Harvest Home is a colonial Australian painting that taps into the pastoral myth that formed the basis of late 19th century Australian identity. Students don't need to know this, but the vision of European settlers farming in the sunshine provides a provocative counterpoint to the version of Australian history that's seen in most Aboriginal poetry. 

The second slide features a collection of questions designed to provoke student thought about the ideas that fuel this artwork. It can be discussed as a class, and then the teacher can use this discussion to come up with a class response (that's what the white rectangle is for on the slide - it's a space for a class definition).

Theme and context are tied very closely together, and I found it useful to bring things back to the over-arching ideas of the unit with a series of questions that reinforced prior knowledge about context and perspective. 

1. What kind of person do you think John Glover was? What can you guess about his context from this painting?
2. 1835 Australia... Whose point of view is missing from this text?
3. Why do you think that is?
4. Do you think this painting is a realistic depiction of 1835?
5. If this painting were a poem, what kind of words would be used? Make a list of 15 adjectives, verbs and nouns that could be used. 
6. Write that poem!

Resource:
1. PowerPoint presentation on 'Theme' 

The 180-Degree Rule (Teaching Film Through Mini-Lessons)

(To have a better idea of what I'm on about here, check out my previous post about teaching film through mini-lessons.)

The 180-Degree Rule in film-making is something that is taken for granted so much now that modern audiences are aware of it in only a subconscious sort of way. Basically, it refers to the fact that when two actors are conversing on the screen, the camera angles and editing used reflect the idea that they are facing one another. Even when the actors don't physically share the screen together, the shots of them should imply that they are still facing one another for their conversation. Therefore, the camera should never film them facing the same way as the person they're speaking to.

The best way to explain it is to see it, so here is a clip from Mark Cousins' The Story of Film that comes in handy as a teaching resource with my classes. It does a wonderful job of demonstrating how this rule came about and why it's used:

I have also included a diagram of the rule (seen at the top of the blog but also included as a resource below) so that students can better visualise the spatial relationship between the cameras and their subjects.

After spending a short amount of time demonstrating it to a class, I then do the best possible thing that can be done when you want to teach film - get the students to employ the technique themselves by filming a short narrative with iPads (or some other device).

I did this in conjunction with the previous mini-lesson I taught on close-ups (see link at top of article) and told the students to incorporate this rule into a part of their video. The result was a short but effective narrative that incorporated film literacy in an authentic fashion, demonstrating student knowledge of film techniques. 

Plus my class had a lot of fun with it, which is something we should never underestimate when it comes to English!

Resource: The 180-Degree Rule (PDF) 

Resource: The 180-Degree Rule (Video)

The Close Up (Teaching Film through Mini-Lessons)

Recently at my school we began working with Professor Wayne Sawyer, the Director of Research in the School of Education at Western Sydney University. The goal of this collaboration has been to improve student writing by incorporating the 'mini-lesson' approach that was pioneered and refined by prize-winning American educator Nancie Atwell. 

Something Wayne Sawyer said to our faculty in our last meeting with him was that it's sometimes helpful to get students to think about creative writing in terms of how films are cut together, and it sparked an idea in me that was only, at best, tangentially related to our mini-lessons project. 

Teachers reading this might be familiar with that gap towards the end of Term 4 where all the junior assessments have been finished, and reports are written, and students are ready to move on to their next grade. At my school, we're often left with about 5 weeks. For some classes, we just continue with their current topic and explore a few areas that might be of interest to the students, or could help set them up for the following year. For Year 10 in particular, we have a space where it's teacher's choice to do a whole topic just for fun. 

As I've mentioned previously on this blog, I had a great Year 10 class last year who were fairly focused, so in their case I decided to do some stuff on the History of Cinema. This is a personal interest area for me as I used to write quite extensively about film before I was a teacher, so I took my students all the way back to the early days of silent cinema. This provided me with an opportunity to take a grass roots approach to teaching the actual mechanics of filmmaking. 

Here's where the mini-lesson stuff comes in. I've never used iPads in the classroom before and I discussed with the class how they felt about giving them a go (with the caveat that the technology might need to be troubleshooted a bit as we went [and it did]). I applied the mini-lesson approach to teach some film techniques, making use of the absolutely brilliant and excellent documentary series The Story of Film, by Irish film critic Mark Cousins. 

(SIDE BAR: I can't recommend Mark Cousins' The Story of Film enough. If you want to know anything about film, this should be your non-negotiable first stop.)

So the first thing thing I did was show the students a short clip from the documentary (included below, though I'm happy to take it down if anyone considers it a flagrant infringement of copyright). 

This clip concerns the point in film history where the concept of a 'Close Up' was first invented. We take the visual language of cinema for granted now, so it can be eye-opening and quite illustrative to get inside the process of how these techniques first came about, and what they really meant. The clip shows one of the very first known close-ups, a sequence where the camera cuts from a mid-shot of a little girl feeding a cat to a close-up of the cat itself and then back again to the little girl. This very short instructive lesson has one simple goal: teach the students about the function of the close-up and show them what a close-up looks like.

After showing this to the students, we then got the school's set of iPads and started filming. I gave them a sheet of instructions that outlined some options for creating some shots. The goal was to create a short mini-narrative with a sequence of shots that incorporated a close-up that would build story. The results were fantastic, and I hope to show some here on the blog after securing permission.

It was a very rewarding experience for both myself and the students. Here are the resources:

Clip: The Invention of Close Ups
Sheet: Close-Up Instructions