Norton Generating Ideas and Text
Pre-writing Activities
Freewriting:
Regurgitate on paper or keyboard any ideas you have on your topic.
Give yourself a time limit.
Read what you have written and pick out the good bits.
Looping:
Helps you explore what you know about a topic.
Loop 1: write for 5 to 10 minutes everything you know about the topic.
Loop 2: Read what you wrote, write a single sentence summarizing this.
Loop 3: Use this sentence as your beginning and write for 5 to 10 minutes.
Continue until you are satisfied you either know nothing at all, are sick of the topic and realize you
could have been playing farmtown, or are ready to move onto your outline.
Listing:
Write a list of potential topics or a list of potential items on your topic.
Clustering:
Write topic in the middle of the sheet of PAPER.
Write ideas relating to the topic around it, circle them, connect them to the topic/
Keep doing it until you are out of ideas or are bored silly with it.
Then work on youir outline.
Cubing:
Describe it.
Compare it.
Classify it.
Analyze it.
Apply it.
Argue for or against it.
Questioning:
Huh?
Use the five Wh? and the How or the Huh and examine your topic.
Outlining:
List your ideas in an informal outline.
Revise it until you have made it into a formal outline.
Outline:
Thesis Statement
Supports