Blog Post One: Ten Things to Do with Starting Lines by Christopher Dean
Everything below is based on work I have done in my class or have seen done in other classes. I offer up everything as a SUGGESTION. If you do any of these things, let myself or Ilene Miele know how they went. Also, if you come up with a new way of working with Starting Lines let us know. We’d love to hear what you do with the collection!
--Chris Dean, cdean@writing.ucsb.edu
WORK ON BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS. Assign a section of the text, say “Responding to Texts” if you are teaching Writing 1 or Ling 12 or “Textual Carnivals” if you are teaching Writing Ask students to read either, or both, the first or final paragraph of a piece and choose one piece to read in its entirety, based upon the beginning or ending they liked best. In class: have students gather in like groups, based upon what they read, and have them come up with a list of reasons they...