Review-Please answer the following

• Why is it important to plan out your writing rather than wing it?
• What is the importance of topic selection? Why must the writer consider the scope of a writing assignment when it comes to topic selection?
• What is the difference between audience and purpose

Six Prewriting Strategies

1. Freewriting

Freewriting

• writing anything and everything that comes to mind without stopping
• usually about 3 to 5 minutes
• focused freewriting on a particular topic or group of topic options
• use a short amount of time to prepare for the more difficult critical thinking to come
• a time of no judgment.

three potential outcomes

• meaningful and useful idea to move forward with throughout the writing process
• might not find a useful idea, but the ideas used might lead the writer to a meaningful and useful idea.
• might not find anything useful for the assignment

It will eliminate the boring, unnecessary, or useless ideas, and at least, he or she is now focused and ready for the remainder of the prewriting process

2. Collaboration

Collaboration

• a member of a writing community
• together to achieve the best final products
• most effective tools writers can utilize as they work through the writing process

3. Brainstorming

Brainstorming

• a good idea to write down every possibility
• too many ideas are better than too few ideas
• first few ideas in a list are the most obvious or generic and should either be eliminated or touched on briefly.

For example, if a writer is brainstorming about why college students should not argue on Facebook, he or she might make a brainstorming list that looks something like this:

-Annoying to friends/family
-Uncomfortable for those not involved
-Might make the arguments worse
-People say things online they might not say in person -meaner?
-Embarrassing-everyone knows about the arguments
-People’s comments create new arguments-parents and other friends get involved
-Awkward afterwards—people don’t forget

Realize that “Annoying to friends/family” and “Uncomfortable for those not involved” are somewhat obvious, and should be mentioned only briefly

Choose to focus on the ways other people become involved in the arguments when they are posted online

A tip and a benefit

• more detailed the brainstorming list becomes, the easier the writing process will be
• requires writers to think critically and search for meaningful and interesting points

4. Questioning

Questioning

• can question themselves, or they can work with partners to discuss the answers to questions
• always ask themselves: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How
• asking most of these questions only one time will not result in critically thought out ideas.

“Why?” and “How?” should be asked repeatedly to allow writers to explore their topics fully

For example, if a writer says that arguing on Facebook creates new arguments, it would be wise to ask the writer why that happens.

-The writer might answer, “because everyone gets involved and comments on the argument.”
-Some writers might stop here, but that would be a mistake. Instead, the writer should figure out why this causes new arguments.

If the writer keeps trying to figure out why this happens, he or she has a good chance of explaining this to readers in the writing

5. Clustering

AKA visual brainstorming

• helps writers see the ideas and their relationships to each other
• draws a circle in the middle of a page and writes the topic in the center
• draws lines to new circles with additional ideas

6. Outlining

Outlining

• writers should outline their material in the order they plan to present it in the draft
• result in high-quality drafts
• save writers valuable time
• detailed enough to provide all of the material that must be included in the draft and in the appropriate order for the reade
• there are phrase outlines and sentence outlines

The 6 strategies to Prewriting

• Freewriting
• Collaboration
• Brainstorming
• Questioning
• Clustering
• Outlining

Activity
Group #1-Do a "freewriting" activity for 3 minutes on "a place" you once visited. Then discuss what you wrote with your group.
Group #2-Create a "visual cluster" to brainstorm a topic on "an important event" that you and your group agree upon. Come up with statements that include details and descriptions of that event. You can also include examples. Try to be detailed.
Group #3-Create a "brainstorm list" about a specific type of "job." What kind of statements will you make or list? Create at least 5 statements or more. Try to be detailed.
**These are basic topics, so just narrow it down to decide on one type of place, event, and/or job to prewrite about.