"Only connect! . . .Live in fragments no longer.” E. M. Forster, Howards End (1910), ch. 22
‘One day when I was twenty-three or twenty-four this sentence
seemed to form in my head, without my willing it, much as sentences form when
we are half-asleep, ‘Hammer your thoughts into unity’. For days I
could think of nothing else and for years I tested all I did by that sentence
[...]” William Butler Yeats (cited in Frank Tuohy, Yeats 1976, p.51 )
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Paris Review: How much rewriting do you do?
Hemingway: It depends. I rewrote the ending to A Farewell To Arms, the last page of it, thirty-nine times before I was satisfied.
Paris Review: Was there some technical problem there? What was it that stumped you?
Hemingway: Getting the words right
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PROJECT
RESPONSES
Because
THE SECRET OF WRITING IS REWRITING,
respond
to projects of others by the third day.
Respond to at least half the class. Reward: 2 points for each
response IF for each person you suggest [1] how to expand or cut the writing
and [2] how to revise one of the sentences.
You must quote a whole sentence of the student's essay that has not been quoted by a previous respondent and specify where the sentence needs improvement and then rewrite the sentence to improve it. For the subject line of your reply, paste in the sentence you are going to rewrite so that it will be easier for others to see what sentences are left for revision.
Responses that consist solely
of generic phrases, such as "Good Job," that do not reveal detailed
knowledge of the project, will not be acceptable. You must respond in sufficient
detail to reveal that you have read the project closely. Let the
author of the writing know how it affected you as a reader, where you were pleased,
where you got confused, where irritated, etc. In general, evaluate the other
students' writing as works of art. If each sample of writing were, say, a statue,
which little as well as big flaws should be corrected?
To get credit for your work, print out your responses to others by cutting and pasting them into a Word document, not by printing out each page individually from the screen.
Grading: Looking Ahead.
Remember that responding properly to
the correct number of projects before the deadline is not just part of your
class participation grade but also, and more importantly, your portfolio grade
(up to 14% of your final grade). For your portfolio you will print out all
of your responses to other students and their quality will be fairly obvious
in that format. Especially valuable are responses that suggest how and where
to add right-brain input: feelings, sensory details, pictures, etc.