Dialectical Thinking and Writing

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Dialectical Thinking and Writing

• English 102

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Fastwrite Exercise

• Imagine a room you spent a lot of time in as a
  child. Put yourself back there.
• Drawing on all of your senses, fastwrite for
  seven minutes, beginning with that room. What do
  you see, what do you hear, what do you smell,
  what do you feel? Write in present tense.
• Skip a line. Compose a fat paragraph, beginning
  with this line What I understand now about this
  time in my life that I didnt understand then was

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The Mountain and the Sea
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From Sea to Mountain Interpreting Facts

• Percentage of Palestinians in refugee camps who
  say that given a choice they would live nowhere
  but Israel 10
• Percentage (of Palestinians in refugee camps)
  who say they would accept compensation and homes
  in a Palestinian state 54
• Percentage of Jewish settlers in the West Bank
  and Gaza who say they would relocate if
  compensated 83

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Dialectical Thinking and Note Taking

• Critical Thinking
• Mountain
• Composing
• Telling
• Generalities
• Focusing
• Ideas about
• What happens
• Now
• Criticizing
• Reflecting
• Interpreting
• Judging

• Creative Thinking
• Sea
• Fastwriting
• Showing
• Specifics
• Collecting
• Observations of
• What happened
• Then
• Generating
• Exploring
• Seeing
• Playing

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Techniques for Dialectical Writing

• Double-entry journal
• Research log
• Narrative note-taking
• Layering

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Reading in Alien Territory Collecting

• Purpose What do you think is interesting,
  relevant, or significant about Nobles argument?
• STEP ONE. Read the excerpt. As you do, use the
  double-entry journal technique to collect lines
  or passages from Nobles text that you find
  significant, interesting, or puzzling. Carefully
  copy these on the left page of your journal.
  Consider reading the excerpt once through without
  taking notes and begin collecting in your journal
  during the second or third reading.

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Reading in Alien Territory Exploring

• When you feel satisfied youve collected enough,
  use the lines or passages youve gathered on the
  left page as prompts for fastwriting on the
  right. When the writing stalls, skip a line,
  look to the left, and find something else to
  jumpstart your writing. When you can, write
  about your own observations and experiences with
  technology that might help you think about what
  Noble is trying to say. Tell stories. Remember,
  questions, not answers, should direct you
  fastwriting. Keep writing until you feel you have
  a grip on some of what Noble seems to be saying
  about technology and your own response to his
  ideas.

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Reading in Alien Territory Focusing

• Adopt a critical mode of thinking for a moment.
  Use the writing and information youve collected
  so far, and compose a paragraph response that
  summarizes, in your own words, Nobles argument
  and offers your own response to it. This
  response should complete the following sentence
  Based on your understanding, the most significant
  thing Noble has to say is

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Reading in Alien Territory Publishing

• Revise and edit your paragraph and post it to the
  Discussion Board.