Rieman, spring 2011

Writing to Explore (WTE)

Description: Throughout the semester you are to turn in 10 of these “Writing to Explore” pieces.
Each should be roughly two pages long (no more) and written in response to a particular prompt
listed below. You may take whatever form feels most appropriate for each topic. You may want
to write in the form of a traditional, formal academic essay. You may want to write it in the form
of a letter. You may want to write a “scene” and use dialogue and description. See what works
for the message you want to convey. Play with how you express yourself in these pieces. See
where your writing and thinking takes you. These are a way for you to develop some possible
ideas for you inquiry paper as well as explore various ways of writing.

Due Dates: One WTE assignment is due each Friday by 5:oo p.m., beginning Friday January 21
and ending on April 1. You can write these pieces in any order that you choose, but please have
all submissions follow MLA format (see sample MLA formatted paper on Moodle) and indicate
which prompt you are responding to in the subject heading of your paper. Submit each
assignment through Moodle, under the Writing to Explore Submissions block.

Expectations: What I hope to see when I read these is real engagement with the topic, not just
perfunctory completion of the assignment. I want to see some good thinking in these. I also hope
to see some risk taking with your writing. Step outside of how you usually write. Play with
different ways of using language, different formats, different voices, but do so as a means of
conveying your response to the prompt.

Assessment: The level of engagement and risk-taking you display in these prompts will
determine your final grade. I will give you an Excellent, Good, or O.K. for each. This entire
assignment accounts for 15% of your final grade.

Prompts:

(1) Choices: Writing is all about decision-making, from broad choices like what topic we
choose to write about, what form our writing will take, who we decide our audience is, to small
choices, like whether to use a semi-colon, a period, or a dash, or which word we choose to most
accurately convey our message. Decisions we make in general often affect the trajectory of our
whole lives. One of the decisions you have made is to attend UNC Charlotte. How did you make
this decision? What was your driving force? What other paths were available to you? Reflect on
how you got to this place in your life.

(2) Writing Log: Keep a log for four consecutive days of every time you write. All writing—
texts messages, lists, class notes, etc.—goes on this list. Calculate how much writing you do in a
week and reflect on this fact. What did you discover about yourself as a writer? Yes, this is a
rather labor-intensive assignment, but it can be quite revealing!
(3) Home Language: Think about the kind of language that your family uses at home. Is your
family loud? Quiet? What kinds of topics do you talk about? How formal or informal is the
language you use with one another? How is it alike or different from how you speak in the
classroom or with your friends or in other discourse communities to which you belong. How
does it fit into the concept of Standard American English as you understand it? Take some time
to reflect on or observe this idea.

(4) Observation: Go spend 20-30 minutes in a public place where people are likely to read and
write (perhaps a coffee shop, the library, a study room in a dorm, your own home). Describe
what you see taking place and then reflect on what you’ve observed. (I got this idea sitting in a
Starbucks one morning witnessing people engaged in various reading and writing practices:
reading on a ipad, writing on a computer, reading a print newspaper, writing in a notebook,
texting, etc.)

(5)Writers on Writing: Watch “Authors on Writing” http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=nT_cd7Cz7y0. Reflect on your own writing process—what rituals do you have? Where do
you write? When do you write? Do you do any other activities when you write (eat, listen to
music etc.) After you have thought about your own process, respond to what you hear these
professional writers saying about their writing life and what it makes you think about your own
writing process.

(6) Storytelling: Reflect on the use of stories—what mediums we use (talking, blogging, letters,
email, phone calls) and what telling stories does for us and our audience. Think about what
purpose telling stories serves. Reflect on your own family’s use of stories. Or tell a story or your
own in response to this prompt. If you’re feeling particularly ambitious and want to hear what
some folks are doing with storytelling today, listen to a story from The Moth at
http://www.themoth.org/about and click on “Listen to Stories.” (Just a word of warning, there is
sometimes swearing in these stories, so if such language may offend you, you don’t have to listen
to any).

(7) Writing Personified: Take this opportunity to think about writing as en entity and address or
describe it as such. You could think about writing as a person and your relationship with it (and
write it a letter, create a dialogue between you and writing, or some other clever and imaginative
way to illustrate how you think about writing); or perhaps you want to describe writing—what’s
it look like, taste like, smell like? What color is it? What shape and size is it? How does it change
depending on how you see it? See what you come up with when you think about writing in this
way.

(8) Memorable Moments: Recount some of your most memorable reading and / or writing
experiences. What was great / awful / interesting? Here’s an example from my life that I’d write
about: I distinctly remember two events in Jr. High School: one, being told in seventh grade that
The Scarlet Letter was too hard a book for me to read and two, in sixth grade, attempting a large-
scale science report on the atom and feeling so very lost and overwhelmed. I didn’t know how to
conduct research or what do with the information I found, and I didn’t feel I got much help in
learning how to do this assignment. I might also write about what it was like to write my
dissertation and what an engaging endeavor that was for me.

(9) Make up your own prompt: Write a prompt that deals with something about reading or
writing and then respond to it. Include your prompt in your assignment, maybe even explaining
what lead you to think of this particular prompt.

(10) Favorite Words: Share the lyrics to a favorite song, a favorite poem or a passage from a
book that are meaningful to you and explain why. What do you know, if anything, about the
composition of the words you offer up here (who wrote them, when, for what purpose etc).