Core Writing Exercises Core Writing ExercisesJump to: 098, 101, 102, General Exercises
098 Exercises| Exercise Name | Description of What Students Do | Keywords |
| On-campus Observation | In small groups, students describe the atmosphere of a campus coffee shop or eatery. | Description, detail, focused sentences, senses. |
102 Exercises| Exercise Name | Description of What Students Do | Keywords |
| Brainstorm Research Ideas | Respond to various questions and writing prompts in order to generate research topics and questions | Brainstorm, generating ideas, invention, prompts, research, topics |
| Inquiry-Based Argument Exercises | Write in response to five mini-assignments to expand their points of view. | Critical thinking, generating ideas, inquiry, invention, perspective, points of view, research, research questions, self-announcing structure, unfolding structure |
General Exercises| Exercise Name | Description of What Students Do | Keywords |
| Double Entry Journal | Write quotations from texts on one side of the page, and respond to the quotations on the other side of the page. | Double-entry journal, journal, notebook, reading |
| Collaborative Poem (New!) | In small groups, write a set of poems based on Mark Halliday's "Before you were you." | Concrete details, showing instead of telling, specificity |
| Critical Thinking | Read a series of statements and come up with questions they would ask about the statements. | Critical thinking, logic, logical fallacies |
| Following Directions | Do a series of tasks. The first instruction is to "Read everything carefully before you begin working." The final task (of 23) is "Now that you have finished reading, do only numbers one and two." | Following directions, reading instructions, paying attention |
| General and Specific Information | Read a general statement, then select the specific details that go with that statement. | Detail, generalizing, showing versus telling, specifics |
| In-class Essay | Write an essay describing their relationship with the act of writing. They are asked to use their "knowledge of essay writing standards." | Diagnostic, essay form, essay standards, essay writing, in-class writing |
| Literacy Walk | Walk around campus as a group, and record, write about, and discuss the messages in texts they encounter. |
Double-entry journal, everyday texts, journal, literacy |
| Miller Poem Imitation | Write a poem using their first initial at the beginning of each line | Creativity, invention, poetry |
| Patterns Exercise | Answer questions and fill in blanks to describe their writing processes | Metacognition, reflection, self-awareness |
| Post Secret | Anonymously send a postcard to the PostSecret web site then reflect on the experience | Reflection, student publishing, self-awareness |
| Write short versions of a fairy tale for different audiences: peers, Harvard professors, "macho" men, etc. | Audience, context, voice, word play |
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| Revision Exercises | Various revision exercises | Revision |
| Rhetorical Appeals, Lesson 1 and Lesson 2 (New!) | Annotate passages from Lamberton (Lesson 1) and view an example (Lesson 2) | Active reading, analysis, annotation, appeals |
| Short Writing Exercises | Write in response to any of 60 short writing prompts | Prompts |
| Triple Entry Journal | Describe what the author of a text says about his/her identity, describe where the author's feelings come from, and describe how the student connects/relates | Journal, notebook, reading |
| "V is for Vendetta" Introduction Imitation | Introduce themselves in writing, imitating V's introduction to Evey in "V is for Vendetta" | Alliteration, iambic pentameter, imitation, self-awareness, word play, YouTube |
| Writing Prompts | Respond to any of 38 short writing prompts | Prompts |