Chapter 8 Revise to Explore Meaning
3. Give copies of the second half of your draft to your class. Ask them to write a couple of paragraphs each describing what they imagine the first part of the draft to be like. Then pass out copies of the entire draft and discuss ways that their readings of the draft's conclusion may help you revise the first part.
6. List at the top of a draft at least three of the seven writers' senses--seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling, imagining, and remembering. Then go back through your paper and expand the areas that bring these senses into play, incorporating into your draft the details that pertain to each sense. As your paper expands, you may want to go back and pare down other sections where you summarize or tell instead of describe and show.
7. Select one sentence or paragraph that your draft could not be without. Use that sentence or paragraph as your introduction and see where it takes you.
12. Read your paper aloud in a small group, and have your classmates note where you pause, stumble, or otherwise revise your wording as you read. Reading aloud like this lets the draft speak and teases out areas of your paper that want more attention. Go back to these spots and figure out what you intended to say but never said, what you should have omitted but kept, what the draft itself wants you to hear.
23. Collect simplistic endings from television sitcoms and dramas. See how many endings you can find that resolve all the characters' issues and problems within thirty or sixty minutes. Then rewrite the endings to make them more complicated.
Murray, Donald. M. Write to Learn. Orlando: Harcourt Brace College, 1998.
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