1. Composition 1101 Ten Basic Steps of Good Writing

2. 1. Active Reading • 3 Levels of Reading • Grammar • plot level • What? • Taste • Logic • asking questions, making connections • How? • Swallow • Rhetoric • analysis • Why? So What? • Digest

3. 2. Logic—Examine the Elements • The Genre • The Title as a lens • The Narrator: Active or passive • The Tone • The Characters: Growth/Transformation • The Setting: Time and place

4. 3. Rhetoric: Analysis • Themes • Symbolism • Allegory • Allusions • Language • Style/Form

5. More Interpretive Questions • Questions about the author • Questions about the cultural context • Questions about the reader

6. 4. Writing to Understand • Informal writing • Free writing • Brainstorming • Mapping/Clustering • Outlining • Discovering the “problem” in the text

7. The Semiotic Iceberg • http://www.westga.edu/~mmcfar/trivium%20and%20the%20Semiotic%20Iceberg.htm

8. 5. Developing a Thesis Statement • 2 parts: What and So What • Must be arguable/debatable • Clear and specific • Must be appropriate for page limit • Must address the text

9. 6. Organize your argument • Claims • Topic Sentences=Major claims (sub claims of thesis statement) • Must prove thesis statement • Use key terms • Support • Quotes/Examples from text • Criticism • Analysis • How does support prove the claim • Must be bulk of paragraph

10. 7. Write Introduction • Must focus on argument • Start general and move to specific (thesis) • Author’s full name • Name of text • Thesis must be at end of introduction

11. 8. Write body paragraphs • 1st sentence—topic sentence • Must be an argument • Must be about text • Use key terms • Layer claims, support and analysis • Transitions within and between paragraphs

12. 9. Write Conclusion • Argument should lead to a natural conclusion • Connect the specific issues with the world at large • Should tie argument together

13. 10. Revise, revise, revise • Make sure thesis is proven • Make sure arrangement of argument is logical • Rearrange, rewrite as needed • Edit—grammar and sentence construction