Extending Connections, Deepening Insight Extended Free-write
Set aside approximately 15-20 minutes to complete.
Students are encouraged to use this as a way to deepen their current Draft 2 or move towards reflection and a plan/rationale for why the public apology is important and needs revision or to exist-in the concluding paragraphs of their analysis.
Ask questions
Connect with the wider World
Reading closely
Intention
As writers, our purpose for writing is often driven by one or two central questions (our Stasis questions for example). Posing these questions explicitly in our writing is one way to engage both ourselves and our audience on a very conscious level. For this sequence, we are contemplating and making claims on our observations about the nature of public apologies, and hopefully, with purpose, we’ve selected an example or evidence of a unique or odd enough to provide points of discussion to raise really interesting questions about.
Good writing also works hard to consider the implications of their claims and connect them to what this means for a larger context or world. For example, What does it mean to apologize on behalf of a nation? Or to refuse an apology?
We also read to “spark” our own ideas. Good writing also shows close observation or unique ways of looking at or reading examples. In fact, it’s hard to be a good writer without being a close reader. The more we read the larger the repertoire we have for the kinds of moves we can make as writers.
How you read your own public apology under discussion as well as the Mbaye and Ahmed articles will have a huge effect on the success of your writing for this sequence.
Last, the “take away” or “intention” of your writing is important to come back to during revision. I often look over an early draft and refocus, re-center myself by asking, what do I want readers to understand better after reading my piece? At the same time, I encourage my students as writers to stay “open” to new insights.
Today’s Extended Free-write at Home:
Open a new word document and label it “Deepening Insight”
Write down 3-5 important questions related to your public apology topic. How do these questions relate to the ideas/claims/observations you are making about your
public apology that you selected?
How does your public apology connect to the wider world? In other words, what
issues or problems does it mirror in the world? What’s at stake? Why does it matter?
What are the implications (the what if) of the apology you are writing about?
Scribble down a few quotations from any of our readings (Mbaye or Ahmed) or your additional research. If you can’t remember them exactly, that’s ok. Get their main gist down. Then go back and find the passage. Feel free to use your Reading Responses to do so. Why is the quotation remarkable or important to your analysis? What connections can you make to them with your apology?