Free-Write+samples

Please post your favorite lines from your free-writes here. You can initial at the end or write your name in parentheses to mark the line as uniquely yours. (MLS)

DAY 1: Two truths and a lie (aka get to know your neighbor in class)

Friday 9/30 - 10/7: Looping free-write for essay 2 topics

Wednesday, 10/5 - 10/12: Reflecting on Malcolm X

Wednesday, 10/26: Toni Morrison How do the themes of love, risk-taking and spiritual survival relate to the stories told in //Beloved// as well as Toni Morrison’s own process of writing the novel?

Friday, 12/2: Julie Dash's //Daughters of the Dust//

Wiki postings and free-writes (I did a free write for 10 minutes for this description below!) The purpose and principles of free writing – Free writing lets you think on paper. It’s exploratory, open, creative, open-ended brainstorming which allows you to gather some thoughts. Sometimes you don’t know what you think until you start writing. It’s a pre-writing activity – fluid, active – are there more ways to say open? Free writing is free, unstructured, disorganized. You write down whatever comes next in your mind, and you might be surprised at what comes out next. New ideas emerge from the writing like wild flowers springing up spontaneously in a field or on the side of the road or in an empty lot. Free writing is like the sun which gives those flowers energy – it gives your writing process energy because the point is to begin and just do it. Looping free writing asks you to underline one important sentence in your free write and then write again. Ink shedding asks you to free write with another person, the more ink shed, the better. Free writing is a beginning, a place to start on a paper topic, a place to put your ideas down on paper and let them grow, let them develop into something bigger than what you had before the free write. You want your ideas to be deeper and fuller, not paper thin or like shallow water. Don’t just wade in the water, dive deeper into your own ideas within your writing and push them forward to build something that you can use to identify yourself, express yourself and be yourself. Free writing is a tool to open up your brain. It’s not a journal or a diary format; its purpose is solely to break open creativity and break down any walls of resistance to writing. The act of writing itself is freeing and creative and generous. Free writing give you power to begin. It does not have to be organized in any way, just keep writing until your 5 minutes or 6 minutes or 10 minutes is up.

Wiki posting/Looping free writes on Paper 2 topics – Free write for 5 minutes. Underline the most interesting or significant sentence that you wrote. Copy it down again and free write again for another 5 minutes. Post one sentence to the wiki from those 2 free writes to describe your topic. (due 10/7) Wiki posting/Ink shedding on Malcolm X – Free write for 5 minutes, exchange papers with a neighbor, read what they wrote and write again for 5 minutes. Exchange back and write for 5 minutes on your own paper to wrap it up. Post one sentence from this exercise to the wiki. (start posting 10/5, due by 10/12)