D4: Prewriting and Outlines

9/6: Prewriting Invention Techniques and Outlines

Hi students!

Today's class will focus on the techniques we use for writing assignments.

Please think about how you write for academic papers, but also about how you write for personal work. Does this change depending if you write in your native language or in English? How do you usually come up with ideas when you have to write?

We will share some ways in which we all write and then we will do the following activities:

1. Listing

Please open a Microsoft Word document. Think about your hometown and write (in list form) as many words or phrases that connect. We will mention out loud the words or phrases that we wrote and we will select a common theme of each place.

2. Free-writing

Think about the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. For 3 minutes, write as much as you can without stopping. Write freely, without thinking about grammar, punctuation, or mistakes. After you are finished, we will share some of the writings.

3. Clustering

Let's decide on a word that we want to develop. After we have chosen our word, take out a piece of paper and pair up with a classmate. Following the Clustering Example, connect words or phrases to the word in the middle, and continue to make connections for each new word or phrase.

4. Talking

Talk to your partner about the previous activity. Discuss if you found it useful or if you did not like it. Talk about how the first word and all of the connections it can have.

5. Questions

Ask your partner something that can answer What? Where? When? Why?, and How? It can be about the University of Illinois and the reasons we are all here.

Now that we have done several types of pre-writing techniques, think about how you felt during each strategy. Which one did you feel most comfortable with? Which one did you least like? Reflect on how the technique you most liked may help you in your writing and in organizing your thoughts.

Next, we will discuss what an outline is and what it is used for.

--Lisa