Composition Pizza
In my Developmental Writing courses, I focus on, as a main point of instruction, paragraph structure: Development, Unity, Coherence.
In the opening week of this summer's course, in an attempt to illustrate Unity, I gave an example of a paragraph that would lack that particular element, sounding something like this:
My best friend and I have always enjoyed a number of activities together. We listen to the same music. We enjoy the same movies and television shows. We even like the same foods. My favorite is pizza. Pizza can be prepared in a number of different ways, and I really enjoy certain pizzas over others. One of the best places to order from is....
You get the picture, right. Obviously the discussion of pizza leads the writer off the topic, resulting in a poorly unified paragraph.
Much to my delight as a teacher, a student demonstrated a great understanding of this concept later in the class when we were examining sample student writing in order to identify errors in paragraph structure. Upon recognition of one writer's failed unity, a student of mine remarked, "That's pizza, right?"
I was elated. "Yes, yes!" I replied. "You got it." It's not often that a student makes such a connection so early in the course. Henceforth, whenever we, as a class, cite an example of a paragraph being off topic, we refer to it as pizza. We have begun to devise a code of sorts to identify key course concepts. This is an exciting phenomenon, as it suggests that there is not only an understanding of course objectives, but also an enthusiasm not often found in Developmental Writing.
One of my colleagues has suggested that I document such class conversations and begin work on an article addressing the encoding of these ideas by my students. I am excited. Another project! I love having all of these topics for possible articles or even graduate papers floating in my head. I can't wait to get started.
In the opening week of this summer's course, in an attempt to illustrate Unity, I gave an example of a paragraph that would lack that particular element, sounding something like this:
My best friend and I have always enjoyed a number of activities together. We listen to the same music. We enjoy the same movies and television shows. We even like the same foods. My favorite is pizza. Pizza can be prepared in a number of different ways, and I really enjoy certain pizzas over others. One of the best places to order from is....
You get the picture, right. Obviously the discussion of pizza leads the writer off the topic, resulting in a poorly unified paragraph.
Much to my delight as a teacher, a student demonstrated a great understanding of this concept later in the class when we were examining sample student writing in order to identify errors in paragraph structure. Upon recognition of one writer's failed unity, a student of mine remarked, "That's pizza, right?"
I was elated. "Yes, yes!" I replied. "You got it." It's not often that a student makes such a connection so early in the course. Henceforth, whenever we, as a class, cite an example of a paragraph being off topic, we refer to it as pizza. We have begun to devise a code of sorts to identify key course concepts. This is an exciting phenomenon, as it suggests that there is not only an understanding of course objectives, but also an enthusiasm not often found in Developmental Writing.
One of my colleagues has suggested that I document such class conversations and begin work on an article addressing the encoding of these ideas by my students. I am excited. Another project! I love having all of these topics for possible articles or even graduate papers floating in my head. I can't wait to get started.