Copy & Compose

This playful activity invites students to experiment with different types of style in their writing.

Author: Cassie Wright

Activity brief description: This activity, which is designed to provide a series of daily "meditations" on style that can stretch across the quarter, relies on the practice of imitatio, asking students to imitate different types of sentences and then apply that experimentation to their own writing practice.

Course: PWR 1/PWR 2

Activity Length & Schedule: 5 minutes a class, across the quarter

Activity goals:

To encourage students to pay attention to the importance of rhythm, metaphor, and clarity in writing memorable prose,
To have them incorporate (implicitly) some of these patterns into their own writer’s stock, and
To have them adopt a playful, nonjudgmental, and rhetorical view of writing

Activity details; See handout

Additional notes: This activity could also be adapted to a shorter activity for a single class instead of being stretched across the quarter.

This activity was originally shared as part of a Program Meeting in winter 2014.