Classroom Writing Activities

Sentence revision: Creating sentence variety in essays.

Materials needed:

• Seven different colors of writing implement (a box of crayons/colored pencils/markers—your choice. Just be sure you have 7 different colors of ink.) Note: Alternatively, you also could use color highlight on the computer.

Purpose

You've written your essay; now, let's see if our major writing goals for this essay have been met.

• Varied sentence structure and word choice
• Use commas properly in a series

Questions to Help You Focus Your Rhetorical Analysis

Content

1. What kinds of evidence—facts, statistics, anecdotes—does the author use? How does the selection of supporting evidence help fulfill the purpose of the text?
2. How does the writer use supporting evidence to appeal to readers? Are these appeals logical and rational? Emotional? A combination of the two?

Most upperclassmen cite wordiness as a weakness in their writing. Reading their first papers confirms their assessments. Even though high school and first-year composition students have been told repeatedly that their writing is wordy, no one has shown them the simple mechanics of recognizing and curing wordiness.