Page 281 - Foundations of Learning, 4th Edition (Revised)

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot…
reading is the creative center of a writer’s life…you cannot hope to sweep someone else away

by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.” Stephen King, American writer

11WRITING IN COLLEGE

Learning to Write and Learning to Write and Writing to Learn
Writing to Learn
In Chapter 10, we introduced the idea that, as college students, you are entering
Introducing Abby into a conversation. Actually, you are entering into several conversations, in
reading, speaking, and writing. Through research and reading, you have a sense
Contexts for Writing of what has been and is being said in specific fields or about specific topics. In
this chapter we will focus on how you can confidently enter into conversations
The Writing Process through writing. As American writer and teacher William Zinsser explains it,
“Writing is thinking on paper.” Through out this chapter, this type of thinking
The Writing Process is an act you will come to know as the writing process.
Methodology
In the long-ago time before computers, cell phones, iPods, and GPS systems,
Assessing Writing the thinking about writing was focused solely on the “product” of a writing
assignment: that perfectly composed and perfectly typed essay that you turned
Rubric: Levels of in, on time, of course, to your professor. No one talked about how to coax those
Writing wonderful ideas in your head onto that blank piece of paper. If you were a literature
major, as one of the writers of this textbook was, you read vague and poetic
Writing in a Major, pieces about writers sitting under trees, looking at daffodils. Or you read about a
Field, or Discipline generation of young Americans finding inspiration by having wildly exciting lives
in Europe, and still, somehow, finding time to write. Neither reflecting on daffodils
LVP: A Creative nor having a wildly exciting life is a bad thing. It’s just that neither will be much
Vision help when you have a five-page
essay due in sociology class on
Activity 11.1 Monday. We can help you there!

The Writing As you are beginning to focus
Methodology on specific career choices, now
is the time to start exploring
Activity 11.2 what types of writing are typical
for the fields in which you’re
Assessing & Revising interested. Potential types of
writing might include reports
Activity 11.3 for clients, grants for funding, content on a company web site, or project
specifications for a consultant. Regardless of the specific type and form of writing
Interviewing about you will do professionally, the process of writing involves the interaction between
Reading & Writing reading, thinking critically, putting ideas down on paper, and revising those ideas
for strength and clarity. The very act of writing promotes and increases learning.
Studies have shown that students who write about what they are learning, learn
the material more thoroughly and remember it better and longer. Simply writing
about a topic can stimulate critical thinking.

GLOSSARY argument essay edit peer assessment revise Writing Methodology

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