4.+The+Process

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Getting specific ideas
Both implied questions and funneling are vital skills in this process. Students should be very familiar with these techniques. Both should be used to gain specificity of ideas, and for substantiation of ideas during almost every step in the process. Exactly where and to what extent you use each of these techniques will depend on the subject you are studying, what kind of paper you are having the students write, and the age of the students.

IMPLIED QUESTIONS
All sentences contain hidden questions. If I were to say, “There are many types of trees here,” you might ask: What type of trees are here? How many types of trees are there? How many trees are here? Where is here? Why are you telling me this?

“My mother bakes the best biscuits in the village” might elicit the following: What village? Who is your mother? What kinds of biscuits does she make? How does she make the biscuits? Who says she bakes the best biscuits? Why are you telling me this?

Teachers should spend a few minutes each day having students practice asking questions of a single sentence on the board. Doing so will eventually result in the following:


 * Students will begin to see the difference between a Major Implied Question and a Minor Implied Question.
 * Major Implied Question: one that is necessary for the reader to understand the material—that is, for the readers to get a basic mental picture.
 * Minor Implied Question: one that might add information to the readers but which is not necessary to get a basic mental picture.
 * Students will see that the more major implied questions that piece of writing has, the weaker the writing.
 * Students will begin to see that asking questions will lead to research.
 * Students will see that the more major implied questions that piece of writing has, the weaker the writing.
 * Students will begin to see that asking questions will lead to research.
 * Students will begin to see that asking questions will lead to research.
 * Students will begin to see that asking questions will lead to research.

Writing a sentence such as “Bears eat berries” on the board initially will lead to such questions as: What kind of bears? What kind of berries? How many berries? Why do they eat berries?

You then can show the students that the following types of implied questions are also appropriate: Who says that bears eat berries? Was there a study? When was the study done? Where was the study done? What did the study conclude? Was there a second study? Who did the study? Where was the study done? When was the study done? Why was the study done? Did the second study affirm—or contradict the first study? What did the second study conclude? Was there a third study? And so on.

More advanced students should be shown that asking questions leads to reader-based prose instead of prose that is merely writer-based. For example, students may begin to ask, What audiences would find this information appropriate? What questions of a broader context—such as “What might be the relationship of weather to berry yields?”—would be appropriate for that audience?

If subject is the most important element in writing, then the concept of Implied Questions is a close second because it teaches young writers to substantiate ideas and to ask questions that will lead to research. Spend considerable time having your students practice this concept.

FUNNELING
Funneling is the process of taking a big, non-specific, or vague idea, and bringing it down to a more specific one. The term refers literally to a funnel – the idea of starting with something big and ending with something small. For instance, if a student made the statement “I like to exercise,” the term exercise is vague. It could be funneled down into a more specific idea (often asking implied questions helps this process). Exercise

Running

Trail running

Running the East Glacier trail at the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau when I go there to visit my family.

Through a series of simple steps, the student has taken a vague topic – exercise – and a boring statement – I like to exercise – and made it into something new and interesting, which still sticks to the original idea of liking exercise.

Choose and use your material.
Whether you are doing a thematic unit on wolves, studying the U.S. Revolutionary War, researching the crisis in the Middle East, doing a literature based unit on the Holocaust, or studying the novel Tuck Everlasting, you will obviously have assorted materials that you and your students use for that particular unit of study. These materials can include texts, trade books, lecture notes, news articles, videos, research, interviews, or any other source of information you have used in your class to study aspects of your subject. These materials form the wealth of knowledge your students now have in their grasp to analyze, think about, and ultimately, write something interesting about that will be interesting and informative to their audience.

Teach your unit as usual. The paper can come at any point in the unit where you feel your students have accumulated access to enough information to help them. Traditionally, the paper is written at the end of a unit, however, since the enthymeme is also a valuable thinking tool, it can be useful anywhere in the process.

For teachers of younger students, and often times even for older students, it is important that you already have an enthymeme in mind that you want them to arrive at. It isn’t vital that they arrive at the exact enthymeme you have chosen; often times they may teach you something new during the process. However, it is important that you know that as with any subject, you are not setting them adrift in a sea of knowledge and hoping they discover their way – you are guiding them toward a focused goal and they are learning along the way.

Brainstorm ideas
Now that your class is at a point where they have been exposed to their learning materials and have a familiarity with the subject matter, they are ready to brainstorm intelligently and efficiently about the subject you are studying. Most teachers have used brainstorming with a class in one form or another, and probably any brainstorming methods you have used before will work here as well.

problems** : **
what problems might occur with a given situation? A problem might be anything that can cause a bad situation, result from a situation (whether bad or not), or make a bad situation difficult to solve.

The 5 W's (news questions)** : **
who, what, where, when, why, how. Have the students brainstorm each separately. “What” will already have been covered under “problems.”

categories** : **
(college majors) – pass out a list of the majors in a major university, and have students go down the list, trying to list problems (from a situation you give them) according to as many majors as possible.

hitchhiking** : **
jumping onto an idea someone brings up. For example, if a student mentions safety, then other students can also brainstorm safety problems. (This technique is closely related to “funneling.”)

free association:
have them write down nouns (not associated with what is being studied) and then see how those free-associated nouns might apply to the unit being addressed.

reversed perception:
look at the opposite viewpoint and then turn it around. For example, if you are doing a nutrition unit and want to identify problems with nutrition, then first brainstorm good nutrition practices; then turn them around to look at their bad sides.

funneling** : **
by far the most important technique, where the students take a general idea and funnel it down to something specific. If specificity does not result, then take a funneled idea and funnel it down

Grade ideas** . **
Which of the brainstormed ideas could actually be useful? Grading ideas is simply taking your list of brainstormed items and putting a grade or score on each one according to some criteria (Is it interesting? Would it be interesting to someone else? Is it fairly original or new? Is there something to say about it?). The students should do the scoring with some guidance by the teacher. Scoring can be simply A,B,C,D,F, a numbered system, or for younger children simply yes, no, or maybe. Whatever will work best with your class should be your guideline. If there are some ideas that receive a middling score or that the class is split on, try to see if you can tweak them to make them better ideas. Sometimes a “C” idea can become a “B” or even an “A” idea with a little funneling, implied questions, or guided discussion.

Prioritize ideas
Now it is time to shorten your brainstorm list. During this step it is perfectly fine if students want to revise or refine some of the ideas using funneling or implied questions. Eliminate all low scoring ideas. If you have a lot of A ideas, you may want to get rid of everything else. However if you have few A’s and a lot of B’s, you may want to keep them both for the time being. The point is to have a good list to discuss in terms of what would be a good subject. Usually prioritize for “ease of research” or “what you know the most about right now” or something similar. However, sometimes you might prioritize for something else, such as “possible life-saving measure” if you’re interested in safety, or “extremely important for saving time and money” if you are having them brainstorm for task analysis, such as planning a construction project. Remember, you are not just teaching them how to write a paper – these skills are essential to task analysis for lifelong learning. If you have done your preps and prompts correctly, the students should arrive at the idea behind the enthymeme you have already written.

Identify relationships
What kinds of relationships can be identified between some of the top ideas on the list and some other aspect or problem involving that subject. If you are studying India and have just read an article on the Taj Mahal, you might have the kids brainstorm a list of everything they know about the Taj Mahal. Once you have graded and prioritized your list, have them identify relationships between items on that list. You may have the word “pollution” on your list. A relationship might then be, “The Taj Mahal has a problem with pollution.” This shows a relationship between two important things, the Taj Mahal, and pollution. Making relationships like this with two parts or “variables” is the writing of your “what plus what” part of the enthymeme.

Remember, writing is communication. When you are communicating with another person, you would not ordinarily limit your discourse to the statement, “Recess was fun.” In an oral discussion you might start out that way, but you would also follow it up with a clearer explanation, such as, “I climbed furthest on the monkey bars.” This is the essential subject of your communication and it involves two variables, “I”, and “monkey bars”. It is now a subject for communication.

Write the enthymeme.
Use Socratic questioning to have the kids “help you” write the enthymeme that they are all going to use. Congratulate them on such a great enthymeme. The enthymeme is essentially a cause and effect statement. The “what plus what” part is the effect. To develop the “why”, discuss what might have caused that. For example, the “effect” is that the Taj Mahal has problems with pollution. There are probably a variety of reasons why this is so. What you and your students need to do is to discuss some of those reasons and then determine which one has the likelihood of being high interest. You might choose something along the lines of tourism causing the pollution.

Assess the enthymeme.
Not all enthymemes are good ones. Just because a sentence has two variables and a why statement does not mean it will form the outline of a good paper. In order to get a better idea of whether or not their subject will be a good one, you and your students need a tool to evaluate the enthymeme.

First you must assess the “What” statement. It must positively meet the following criteria;
 * 1) a. Is it a sentence?
 * 2) b. Does it have two variables?
 * 3) c. Are both variables either a noun or a pronoun?

Next you must assess the “Why” statement. It must meet the following criteria;
 * 1) a. Does it have a “because”?
 * 2) b. Are the “why’s” short? (they should be)
 * 3) c. Do any of the “why’s” repeat the variables? (they shouldn’t)
 * 4) d. Are the “why’s” in the same order you will use them in the paper?

Just because an enthymeme doesn’t meet some of the criteria does not mean it needs to be thrown out. It may only need some fixing up. During the assessment, you may do some more implied questions or funneling to make your variables more appropriate.

Make an organic outline** . **
Once you and your students have an enthymeme that you like and that meets all the requirements in step seven to be considered an enthymeme, it is time to start using its organizational structure to form an outline. There will always be a minimum of three elements of the enthymeme; the first “what”, the second “what”, and the “why”. If you have more than one “why”, there will obviously be more elements. Using the sample enthymeme, “I love wolves because when they howl it sends shivers up and down my spine”, we can separate the parts for an outline. The “I” is the first part, “wolves” is the second part, and “howling sends shivers up and down my spine” is the third part. The organic outline is always set up in a basic table format, with the parts of the enthymeme being placed at the top of each column. Using the wolf example, an organic outline table for that enthymeme would look like this;

You will notice that there is a fourth column here titled “misc.”. This column should be reserved for input from students that doesn’t fit the other columns, but recognizes their contribution to the process.
 * I || Wolves || Howling sends shivers up and down my spine || Misc. ||

Put this diagram on the board. As you work the students through this process over time, you will have them orally “set up” this outline. Begin soliciting details from the class about each of the elements. As they give ideas, put them in the appropriate column. For example, “wolves make dens” would be at detail appropriate for the “wolves” column. Some of their ideas will not fit in any of the first 3 columns (“I saw ‘White Fang’ five times!”). Those are the details that are reserved for the “misc.” column. The outline should be fairly long, dependent upon the age of the students. A short outline will result in a very short paper.

Organizing paragraphs
Once the outline is fairly complete, it is time to decide how you will organize the details of each element. There are three basic approaches to organization;

a. __**Big to small**__ – Taking the bigger ideas and putting them first, and finishing with details. Most papers will use this organization. Funnel. b. __**First to last**__ – this is essentially organizing details in chronological order. c. __**Spatial**__ – Useful when describing something. For instance, when describing what a room looks like, or where something is located. d. __**Introduce, define, prove**__ - Useful for papers where you must locate evidence to support your argument. A paragraph is introduced with a topic sentence - this is where we see the idea. The idea is then defined in further detail. Finally, the paragraph is finished with some kind of proof - a quote, an example, or an anecdote. This could also be classified as "big to small" organization, but it is important to define this organization specifically because of its usefulness in expository writing, research writing, and response to literature.

During this process it is vital that you continually use implied questions and funneling maintain specificity of your subject and its details. Implied questions will help greatly in bring out more substantiation of each element.

When you and the class have decided on what organizational format you will use, begin organizing the lists of information you have in each column. You can simply put numbers by the ideas you already have there.

Often during this part of the process students will remember other details that should also be included in the outline. This is no problem. Simply determine where in your order that idea should go. If it would fit well between idea 4 and 5, number it 4.


 * Writing the paper**

After the organic outline is complete, the hard part of the paper, subject and substantiation, is essentially done. Writing it out is simply a matter of taking each section of the organic outline, and writing your ordered details into sentences. Each element will probably be a paragraph.

Using traditional instruction, teachers are trying to direct students to consider all 6 writing traits at the same time – a daunting task that few adult writers can handle well.

The value in actually writing out the paper after the organic outline is complete is that now you can focus working with students primarily on sentence structure, word choice, voice, and style. The difficult parts, ideas and organization, are already taken care of.

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