Tuesday, July 21, 2009

On Harper's Writer's Toolbox

It's obvious that Harper is not reinventing the wheel, but is giving it a good push up the hill. I really like her approach to making Lane's ideas accessible through the use of graphic shorthand. I'm with her all the way about having a common language,and symbols do the trick.

I'd like to carry this further and relate the same idea to Warren's presentation on teaching grammar: why not come up with some symbols for "ing", apositives, absolutes, etc.? I'm not sure what kinds of symbols I would use, but I think it's worth contemplating.

I also like her idea about color coding the text so that students can get a bird's eye view of their draft--they can see where the weaknesses or imbalances are very quickly.

Need to get that toolbox filled right away.

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