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I. PREWRITING
Your most productive way of beginning almost any writing task will
be to collect your thoughts on paper without the pressure of
structuring your expression into its final form.
—Robert Scholes and Nancy Comley
The Practice of Writing
Any project begins with early efforts. Accordingly, to write a composition, essay,
report, or response requires preliminary words, thoughts, direction, and intent.
The prewriting phase of composing encourages the production of these early
inklings, thoughts, and ideas. In order to compose words, sentences, and
paragraphs that ring and resonate, some early efforts need to be initiated.
Prewriting ideas can originate from brainstorming techniques, composing lists,
scribbling clusters, outlining, reading pre-texts, or exploring related topics. In
essence, prewriting in an act of invention—of developing ideas—that works best
when the student is not pressured by concerns such as form and correctness.
The computer’s versatility and speed make it a particularly apt tool for the
prewriting process.
A. Prewriting Activities
1. Freewriting
Two kinds of freewriting may help writers unleash their cognition and
creativity—unfocused and focused.
When a writer is searching for a topic for a paper, unfocused freewriting
can help to discover ideas. This method involves simply writing whatever
ideas come to mind until the writer discovers an interesting idea, worthy of
exploration.
At that point, the writer may continue to freewrite, but now uses focused
freewriting to help elicit and identify specific ideas.
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2. Listing
Like freewriting, listing may be either focused or unfocused.
Creating a list of ideas that might serve as topics for papers is closely
related to brainstorming. The writer lists as words, phrases, or clauses
whatever comes to mind.
Writers may also use listing to jot down quickly all ideas they can think of
on a particular topic. Later, the writer may group related ideas and write
summary statements or topic sentences. The writer may also use items
from lists, summary statements, and topic sentences as prompts to
explore and amplify ideas. (See nutshelling and clustering below.)
3. Invisible Writing
Invisible writing helps keep the writing process going because the
students will not see their errors and stop to fix them. To try “invisible
writing,” turn off (or turn down the brightness on) the monitors so that
students cannot see what they are typing.
4. Topic Building
One way to generate ideas and have students work collaboratively is to
use “topic-building.” In topic-building, each student announces the topic
he/she is considering, and then the class provides feedback on how the
topic might be refined or developed.
5. Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a group activity that finds and explores ideas for writing.
Several of the preceding and following techniques can be used for
brainstorming--e. g. listing, topic building, nutshelling.
6. Nutshelling
Nutshelling is a method of organizing prewriting, as well as a techniques
for developing prompts for additional prewriting. As the name suggests,
nutshelling consists of creating summary statements. These become
prompts for additional writing that may explain, illustrate, or amplify in
some other way each of the summary statements. The summary
statements also may become the first version of an organizational plan for
the paper that the writer will use in the next part of the process.
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7. Clustering
Flunking
the road
test
Apologizing and
then hitting the
tree
That
morning
Driver’s
Test
Accidentally
hitting the
driving
examiner
The road
test
Practicing
parallel
parking
Waving my
arms when
turning around
Clustering, or grouping ideas—as in the example above—is a good
method for writers who think spatially. Clustering can be accomplished
with the computer. However, because creating clusters with a computer
requires a number of features and steps, it may be faster and more
practical to do clustering on paper. In addition to this illustration using
circles and lines, writers also can construct clusters with either tree
diagrams or balloons and strings.
8. Using Prompts
Prompts posed as either statements or questions may be very general so
that they are applicable to any paper. They also may be customized to fit
the needs of a particular paper. Either the student or the teacher may
create prompt statements and/or questions. For many students, it is
easier to get started if they begin writing and gathering information by
responding to the prompts. Diskettes containing prompts may be created
for students. Students can use freewriting, listing, and other prewriting
techniques to respond to prompts.
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9. Coaching, Collaborating, Peer Editing
Characteristics of a process writing environment include instructor input,
instructor intervention, peer collaboration, and peer editing. All activities
and techniques can be used in four general ways: 1) students working on
their own papers; 2) students working together on co-authored papers; 3)
students serving as audiences/peer editors for one another; 4) instructors
serving as coaches, audiences, and responders for students’ papers.
B. Prewriting Tools
1. Using the Outline view with listing
Word’s Outline feature provides an excellent tool for easily rearranging
the text that a writer has composed using prewriting techniques. While we
use the Outline feature as a tool for moving from prewriting to the
writing/drafting phase, we suggest turning it on here, before using a given
prewriting technique. Turning on this feature will make text manipulation
simpler later.
To turn on the Outline view, do the following:
a. click View
b. click Outline
c. In the Outline view, your screen will change to include green
arrows that allow you to Promote, Demote, and move Up or Down
items on the screen.
d. When entering text in the outline view, each tap of the Enter key
creates an item than can be manipulated with the Promote,
Demote, Up, and Down arrows. Here is the look of text entered in
the Outline view:
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e. Use these four buttons (Promote, Demote, Up, Down) by single
clicking an item and then clicking the button. Each time you click a
button its feature is applied to the item selected. Here is that text
after adding the categories NUTS and FRUITS and moving and
demoting some of the nuts and fruits under their respective
categories.
2. Using the Highlight feature with freewriting, listing, brainstorming
After creating ideas using either an unfocused approach for finding a topic
or a focused approach to explore a topic, the writer needs to begin
grouping the unorganized list—“imposing order on chaos.” One method,
especially useful for visual learners, is highlighting related ideas by using
the same color for all related ideas with Word’s Highlight feature. On the
toolbar this feature resembles a highlighter pen.
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To activate the pen, single-click it. Do the same to deactivate it.
The color under the pen is the currently selected color. To change the
color, click on the arrow just to the right of the pen. A selection of colors,
called a palette, appears. Click on the color of choice on the palette. The
palette will close and the pen color will change to match the selection.
Pen Color
Selected Color
To apply the color, drag the pen across text just as one would do to
highlight for other, non-color purposes.
Later, colors can be remove by selecting None on the color palette and
dragging the pen across all text. This removal of colors can also be
achieved by dragging the pen from upper left to lower right, for instance,
rather than item by item.
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3. Using Text Boxes
Text boxes can use used to identify and organize related ideas. Text
boxes can also be color coded to highlight related ideas. Because boxes
can be dragged and dropped anywhere within a file, this combination of
text boxes and color provides students with a simple, effective means of
organizing prewriting material.
Creating a text box is quite simple. The icon for creating text boxes is
located on the Draw toolbar, usually located on the bottom of the screen.
NOTE: If the Draw toolbar does appear at the bottom of the screen,
activate it with these steps:
a.
b.
c.
select View
select Toolbars
select Drawing
Here is the Text box icon as it appears on the Draw toolbar:
To create a Text box that contains an idea from the prewriting material
generated for a paper, do the following:
a. highlight the text to be included in the Text box
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b. click on the Text box icon
The highlighted text should now appear in a text box. The text box can be
moved about the page. After creating text boxes for other ideas, you can
select and drag text boxes to group them.
Text boxes can also be color-coded to identify those containing related
ideas. To add color to a text box, do the following:
a. highlight text and create a text box as indicted above
b. click on the text box to select it
c. click on the down arrow on the right side of the Fill icon on the
Draw toolbar to see the palette of colors available
d. select and click the color of your choice from the fill palette
Fill Palette
4. Using Shapes from the Draw Toolbar with listing
With the Draw toolbar, the writer can place related text in boxes of related
shapes—squares, rectangles, circles, and ovals.
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Next, place the cursor at the very top of the text in your prewriting file.
Then, tap the Enter key 5-10 times to create a blank space above the
prewriting text. You will place master shapes—rectangle and oval—in this
space. To create these master shapes, follow these steps:
a. Click either the rectangle or oval shape. The cursor becomes a
crosshair (+ )
b. Hold down the left mouse button and drag in any direction to
create the shape. Don’t be concerned with the size of exact
shape. These can be adjusted as needed to encompass the text
to be placed within a shape. Create one rectangle and one oval
in this manner. The page should look something like this:
c. If one of the shapes was dragged over some text now, the text
would be behind the shape and would not be visible. To solve
this problem, place the cursor inside one of the shapes. Then,
click the left mouse button to select the shape. When selected,
the shape has squares (called handles) on the corners and
between the corners. If no handles are visible, click on a corner
or edge of the shape to select it (handles appear). Selecting can
be tricky. It may require some experimenting to find the spot that
selects the shape and gives the handles.
HANDLE
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d. With the shape selected, place the pointer inside the shape. The
pointer becomes a combination of a pointer and a cross-hair with
four arrow-shaped ends.
e. Click the RIGHT mouse button quickly to activate this menu:
f. Select Order from the menu and Send Behind Text from the
submenu. Now, whenever this shape is placed over text, the text
will be visible inside the shape.
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g. Repeat this process for the second master shape (rectangle or
oval).
h. To use a shape, make a copy of a master shape rather than
using the master shape itself. To copy a shape, left click the
shape to select it. Then, right click to activate the menu you see
below.
i. Click Copy on this menu. Then, right click again to activate the
same menu again. This time, select Paste to create a copy of the
shape. As seen here, the copy is selected (note handles) and
can be moved to other locations, such as over text.
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Handles
j. Drag the shape over some text. Use the handles to adjust the
dimensions of the shape until it encompasses exactly the text you
wish to place within it. Apply similar shapes (circles, rectangles,
ovals, squares) to related ideas.
k.To differentiate further among items of text, apply colors to
shapes placed over text. To apply color to a shape, select the
shape by left clicking inside it or on its border. Then, with the
pointer inside the shape, right click to bring up the menu in the
figure under point h (see above).
l. On this menu select Format Auto Shape.
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m. This dialog box appears:
n. Click on the Color and Lines tab. The following box appears:
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o. Under the Fill category, note that the default color is white (in
effect, no fill). Click inside the Color window and select a color
from the palette that appears by clicking on that color. Click OK
to apply that color to the shape.
Default Color
is White/No
Fill
Click Color
window to
activate color
palette
p. Here is a colored shape applied to text using the preceding
steps:
Now is the time for the quick red fox to depart from the hen house.
5. Combining Text Boxes and Shapes
Text boxes can be placed within ovals and rectangles as an additional
means of grouping and organizing material. Placing a text box within a
shape is a simple drag and drop procedure. After a text box has been
placed in a shape, the text box and shape can be Grouped. Grouping
items causes separate items to become linked, allowing one to move them
about as a unit within a file.
Here is the procedure for grouping a shape and a text box:
a. Create the text box and shape as described above (sections 3,
4)
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b. Right click on the border of the text box to activate the pop up
menu. (It is crucial to click on the border of the text box, rather
than within the text box, to activate the correct pop up menu.)
c. Click on Format Text Box
d. Under the Line category, click in the Color window.
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e. From the color palette, select No Line so that the text box will
have no border. Then, click OK.
f. Drag the text box inside the shape created earlier.
g. Click on the shape to select it.
h. Hold down the shift key and click on the text box to select it, too.
Now, both the shape and the text box should appear with
handles, indicating they are both selected.
i. With both objects selected, move the pointer inside the shape
and right click to activate the pop up menu.
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j. Select Grouping, and then Group to make the two objects a
single unit that can be moved as one element.
6. Using NiceNet and Blackboard for topic building
Nicenet (the Internet Classroom Assistant) and Blackboard may be
used to have students do “topic-building” outside of class. Nicenet and
Blackboard both provide free services on the Internet that allow teachers
to set up private classrooms where students may communicate
asynchronously with one another or with the teacher by posting messages
electronically. Both services are described in detail in the section of this
document titles “II. Drafting/Writing.”
7. Using Autotext to Create Prompts and Editing Comments
AutoText is used to quickly insert text into a document. Auto texts may
include teacher-response comments and teacher-posed prompts.
To create an AutoText entry demonstrating teacher responses:
a. first create text, such as the teacher comments below:
What angle can you take on this topic that makes it matter to
you and/or makes it compelling to your audience?
Are you writing to inform? to persuade? to entertain?
For whom are you writing?
What do they already know about the topic?
What tone is appropriate for your audience?
b. Next, highlight the text to be used as Auto Text.
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c. Select Insert, AutoText, New and give the selection the title
prompts and click OK.
Enter a logical
title of at least 4
characters here
d. Close the document without saving the changes and open a new
document.
e. Type the word “prompts” slowly. As soon as a “floater” containing the
Auto Text appears, press Enter and the entire entry will be inserted.
f. An AutoText entry remains until deleted it from the AutoText box. If
the title of an entry cannot be recalled, the Auto Text can also be
inserted by selecting Insert, AutoText, AutoText and looking for the
title in the entries given.
g. Instructors may create auto text for standard editing comments, for
example, subject-verb agreement or coherence. An instructor can
create a longer explanation of subject-verb agreement, but needs to
do so only once.
The AutoText Dialog
Box
When an entry
such as “prompts”
is selected, its
contents appear in
the Preview
window
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8. Using Comments to create prompts
The Comments feature may be the single most valuable feature for
writing instruction. It is comparatively simple to master. Students and
instructors can become proficient in a few minutes. It is an excellent peer
editing tool.
When the Comments feature is activated (see below: “To create a
comment”), the screen splits into an upper portion that contains the text
which someone has created and a lower portion in which comments
created by a peer editor or instructor will appear. Here is a look at a split
screen with text in the upper portion and a comment in the lower portion:
Like all screens when the Comments feature has been activitated, the
screen above includes these elements:
a. in the upper portion of the screen, a comment highlighted and
numbered; the initials of the creator of the comment in the text
b. in the lower portion of the screen, initials, number, and words of the
comment
We recommend using the Comments feature primarily for use in the
writing/drafting and rewriting phases of the writing process. The
Comments feature can be used to provide prompts for writing/drafting
and rewriting, too. Here are the steps for using the Comments feature:
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As indicated above, comments are identified on both the upper and lower
parts of the screen by the initials of the writer of the comment. Actually,
the initials that appear are those of whoever is listed as the User of any
given copy of Microsoft Word. To make certain that the proper initials
appear with each comment, change the User Information by doing the
following:
a. select Tools
b. select Options
c. select the User Information tab
d. enter your name and initials in the appropriate boxes
e. click OK
On-screen icons for using the Comment feature can be placed on the
Toolbar with these steps:
a. Click View
b. Click Toolbars
c. Click Reviewing to activate the Reviewing tools.
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NOTE: The Reviewing toolbar provides icons not only for the using the
Comment feature, but also the Track Changes, Highlight, and Versions
features, all discussed and explained elsewhere in this guide.
Creating a Comment using the Reviewing Toolbar:
To create a comment with the Reviewing toolbar, click on the Insert
Comment icon.
Creating a Comment using menus:
To create a comment without adding the Reviewing tools to the toolbar,
do the following:
a. With any document open, click Insert on the Menu bar.
b. On the drop-down menu click Comment
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Regardless of the method used to create a comment, the screen splits like
this:
initials
comment
The comment creator’s initials, followed by the comment number appear
in the upper part of the split screen; the comment itself, on the lower
section.
To view a comment, click on either the Previous Comment icon or the
Next Comment icon or place your pointer on the comment identified by
initials.
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Previous Comment Icon
Next Comment Icon
Let the pointer rest there until the comment itself appears—“pops up”-- on
the screen. Here is how a comment appears when it pops up:
(NOTE: You can also click Insert, Comment, to see the comment, but this
will create a new, blank comment on the screen. You can delete the blank
comment by clicking on the comment initials and number with the RIGHT
mouse button and selecting Delete Comment.)
Printing Comments
Option 1: Comments do not print under Word’s default settings. To print
them, settings need to be changed in the Tools, Options, Print menus by
selecting Comments and Hidden Text under the Include with ocument
category. These selections will cause the comments to be included when
the entire document is printed.
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Option 2: Comments only, without the document itself, may be printed
from the File menu by selecting Print and then selecting Print What and
Comments from the Print dialog box:
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9. Using the Table feature for peer and teaching comments
Some commercial process writing software packages include a useful
feature which places a student essay in one column and provides
additional columns for comments by peers or the instructor. One of the
merits of this arrangement is that the writer can see his/her text and the
comments of others simultaneously. Another advantage is that the
comments can be placed adjacent to the portions of text to which they
apply. While we can achieve much the same effect with the Comments
feature of Word, some writers and editors prefer using tables. This feature
can be used with any draft from first to last in the writing process.
To use the table feature for peer editing or instructor feedback, we do the
following:
a. Create prewriting material using any or several of the techniques
discussed above.
b. Open a new document by clicking the New Blank Document icon
c. Create a table of one row and 2-4 columns (one for the essay and 13 for comments)
To create a table, do this:
a. Click Table
b. Click Insert Table
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c. Set the number of columns to 2-4
d. Set the number of rows to 1
e. Click OK
f. Adjust the cell width so that those columns for comments are 11.5” wide. To adjust the cell width, drag the cell boundaries.
g. Return to the prewriting document by clicking Window and the
document (the one that is not currently on top and has no check
mark next to it).
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h. Press Ctrl and the A key (or Edit, Select All) to select the entire
prewriting document.
i. Click on the Copy icon (or click Edit, Copy) to copy the
prewriting to the clipboard, Word’s temporary holding place.
j. Click Window and then the name of the document containing the
table. This will bring back the document with the table so that text
can placed into the appropriate columns.
k. Click inside the left-most column in the table.
l. Click the Paste icon (or Edit, Paste) to paste the prewriting from
the clipboard into the table.
TEXT PASTED INTO FIRST COLUMN
COLUMNS FOR COMMENTS
When creating comments within the right hand cells of the table, the editor
may encounter difficulties keeping comments positioned just to the right of the
text the editor wishes to comment on. To solve this problem, create a text box
in the comment column and immediately to the right of the text to be
commented on. Type the comment inside the text box, and make any needed
adjustments to the text box (e. g., size, shape, position).
Remember, to create a text box, place the cursor at the point where you wish
to create the text box. Then, click the text box icon on the draw toolbar,
usually located at the bottom of the screen.
NOTE: For complete instructions on creating text boxes, see “3. Using Text
Boxes.”
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10. Grouping with Cut, Copy, Paste
As opposed to the days when every editing change meant retyping an entire
document, using the computer to cut, copy, and paste allows students to rearrange text rapidly. Cut and paste and copy and paste techniques are
described below:
a. To Cut an item means to remove it from text and Paste (insert) it
to another location.
b. To Copy an item means keeping the original text in its location
but creating a copy to Paste elsewhere.
c. When an item is Cut or Copied, it is placed in the Clipboard
program in Windows 95/98. Whatever is cut or copied stays in
the Clipboard until a new item is cut or copied or the computer is
turned off.
Using the toolbar to Cut, Copy, and Paste:
These are the toolbar icons used for cutting, copying, and pasting:
Cut
Copy
Paste
a. First, select (highlight) the text you want to move (cut) or copy.
b. Next, with the text selected, click either the Cut or Copy icon. (Note:
Cut, Copy, and Paste commands are also included in the Edit
menu, but using this menu is a slower process because it involves
several additional mouse clicks.)
c. Then, move the cursor (insertion point) to the place in the text to
which you want to move or copy the selected text.
d. Click the mouse button once or twice at the insertion point, making
certain the cursor appears there. This indicates that the
mouse/cursor is, indeed, located at this new point.
e. Click the Paste icon. The text selected for moving or copying should
appear at this new insertion point.
Using the mouse to Cut, Copy, and Paste:
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Most people use the mouse to cut and copy text when they’re moving the text a
short distance. When the mouse is used, the text does not get stored in the
Clipboard. The technique of cutting or copying with the mouse is called “Drag
and Drop.”
Steps to Drag & Drop Text:
To drag the text,
position the pointer at
the edge of the
selected text and hold
down the left mouse
button until you see a
small box appears
under the pointer.
When you hold down the
Ctrl as you drag & drop,
the box that appears
below the pointer will
contain a plus (+) sign.
**This is the drag & drop method we
recommend, since it prevents
moving text when you meant to copy
or vice-versa.
Keyboard shortcuts to cut and paste:
a. To cut, select text, press CRTL + X (cut)
b. To paste, press CRTL + V
c. To copy, press CRTL + C (copy)
d. To paste, press CRTL + V
Right Click
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Text can also be copiedby selecting it and then right-clicking on the selection.
The menu that appears will include the option to cut or copy. Then, after
positioning the insertion point at the spot where the text is to be moved, right
click, and select paste.
11. Turning off Spell and Grammar Check
Although the red (for spelling errors) and green (for grammar errors) wavy
lines are useful tools, they can hamper the writing process by encouraging
a student to focus too heavily on errors during the prewriting process. To
turn off the spelling and grammar check function, click on Tools on the
command bar and then select Options from the drop-down menu that will
appear. After selecting Options, the dialog box will appear.
Select the Spelling & Grammar tab and then de-select the following
options: Check spelling as you type; Always suggest corrections;
Check grammar as you type; Check grammar with spelling.
Click on the
following
boxes to deselect (turn off)
their functions.
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12. Turning on the Spell Checker and Grammar Checker
When the prewriting process is over, the grammar and spell checking
features may be turned on again, or they may be left off off until the
revising/editing stage. Whenever spelling or grammar checking needs to
be done, these features can be turned on again by doing the following:
a.
b.
c.
d.
click Tools
click Options
select the Spelling & Grammar tab
select Check spelling as you type and Check grammar as you
type, and grammar with spelling to turn spelling and grammar
checking on
e. click the Recheck Document button to check spelling and
grammar immediately
Check spelling as you type
Check grammar as you type
Recheck Document
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