how we write

Today in class we talked about our writing process.  We started with the journal topic asking you to describe yours, then we shared ideas, and then I took one for the team by talking and writing my way through the prompt we had recently.  Here are the notes and the essay I wrote on the screen while we talked:

Key Elements of Writing Process

• Read the question
• not just with our eyes, but for deep understanding
• scan for the action words that tell us what's needed (in the case of the "Earth on Turtle's Back"/"Young Goodman Brown" prompt, the key word is EXPLAIN)
• Circle or underline anything we need to emphasize or remember
• Do a pre-write
• Thesis statement
• At least three key supporting reasons, details or facts (depending on type of essay)
• This is your trail of bread crumbs so you don't have to remember your entire train of thought as you write
• Can be outline, word web, bulleted list... any structure that helps you (mine below is a combo of a thesis statement and bullets)
• Write
• Proofread
• Hard to overstate the importance of giving yourself a couple minutes for this
• Close your eyes, stretch, wiggle your fingers, and try to read your paper as if you've never seen it before or someone else wrote it and asked you to fix it
• As you read, listen for any grammar that clanks-- you don't have to know WHY it's incorrect, you just need to know that it needs fixing
• Watch for mechanical issues (punctuation, spelling, capitalization, legibility)

Here is what I did:

EXPLAIN the differences in themes and tones between Earth… and YGB

Earth was a creation myth that focused on determination

YGB was a suspenseful story that focused on a character’s transformation from faithful to cynical

I. The messages/themes of the stories are different (details)

II. The tones of the stories are different (Earth is optimistic; YGB is pessimistic)

III. Everything about these stories shows in diction and syntax (details/examples)

People tell stories for different reasons.  Sometimes I tell stories to my friends just to include them in my day and describe moments they didn’t experience with me.  “Dude,”  I’ll say, “You’ll never believe what Abigail said to Augustin in class today that made him blow milk out of his nose!”  In my stories I include words and combinations of words that get my message across and convey my attitude toward the subject or the characters.  I use words and combinations of words that help my listeners or readers understand where I am coming from.

The authors of “Earth on Turtle’s Back” and “Young Goodman Brown” also used words and combinations of words to get their ideas across.  The diction and syntax in each of these stories tells us about the themes and the tones of each story.

The themes of these two stories are very different from each other.   Earth on Turtle’s Back tells the story of the creation of the world.  The muskrat, the smallest animal in the story, shows the kind of strength and determination we need to build our world.  In contrast,  Young Goodman Brown is the story of a weak-minded character who loses his faith and ends up miserable. 

Since the central messages of these stories are so different, it makes sense that their tones are different too.  Tone is the author’s attitude toward the characters, or the subject, or the audience.  In Earth on Turtle’s Back it seems like the author cares about the world and wants to set an example for all who learn the story.  Young Goodman Brown teases us with temptation and seems like it almost has a wicked sense of humor as the main character gets tricked and loses everything he cares about.

The way we come to understand these stories is the way we come to understand every story: through the words that authors choose and the way the authors put those words together.  The words that authors choose are known as diction.  The way the authors arrange those words into sentences is known as syntax.  In Earth on Turtle’s Back the diction is simple and straightforward.  The author uses words that most children know, probably because this story was used to teach children.  In Young Goodman Brown, the diction is fancier and the words are more complicated—even adults have to look some of them up.  This may be because the story is for adults to think about right and wrong in a mature way.  The same is true for the syntax.  EOTB has shorter, simpler sentences, and YGB has longer, more complex sentences.

It makes sense that these stories were written in different styles, so they could serve different purposes and send different messages in different ways to different audiences.