What Authors Say About Writing
Click on an author's name to see a quote by that author. Click on the name again to turn the quote off.
"Begin at the beginning," the King
said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."
__ Lewis Carroll
in Alice's Adventure in Wonderland
Eeyore (created by A. A. Milne)
"This writing business. Pencils
and what not. Over rated if you ask me."__ Eeyore
"Reading maketh a full man, conference
a ready man, and writing an exact man."__ Francis Bacon
"Writing has laws of perspective,
of light and shade, just as painting does, or music.If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself."
__ Truman Capote
"The beautiful part of writing
is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say,
a brain surgeon. You can always do it better, find the exact word,
the apt phrase, the leaping simile."__ Robert Cormier
When you think about effective writing, you often think first about elements like word choice, content, grammar and mechanics, or evidence. Previous sections of this unit provided you with the tools needed to teach effective writing to your students. This section reviews the modes of writing your students can explore. The four basic modes of writing included in this section are narrative, descriptive, expository, and persuasive.
Audience
An understanding of audience will help you choose the best mode for your writing. When faced with the question of audience, inexperienced student writers often think no further than their instructor. "However, when you write an essay with only your instructor in mind, you might not say as much as you should or say it as clearly as you should, because you assume that the person grading it knows more than you do and will fill in the gaps.... Remember that time when you said to yourself, "I don't have to explain communism; my instructor knows more about that than I do" and got back a paper that said something like 'Shows no understanding of communism'? (Audience, 2019). Depending on the writing purpose, there are many potential audiences: friends, parents, relatives, possible employers...and, yes, teachers. Accurate knowledge of an audience helps with decisions on how to shape a thesis statement, what information to include and how to organize it, as well as word choice, tone, and other stylistic considerations.
The first link below includes information on why audience is important, the relationship between the writer and the audience, and audience stance (that is, will the writer be writing to argue or persuade the audience toward or away from a particular stance or action?). The second link provides advice on how to identify an audience, choosing what to say to an audience, understanding the reader's position, and pinpointing gaps in a rough draft that may confuse an audience.
https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/audience/
Objective
You will now explore the four text types and purposes of writing and their elements. You may refer to the chart in "The
Developmental Stages of Writing" section. The
chart suggests the grade level, based on developmental stages, for introducing
each mode of writing.
