I got in a couple of running miles this morning. We have pretty much nailed down our weekly routine but I still have to think when I first wake: Where am I?

We found nineteen pieces of sea glass yesterday, seventeen the day before.

THE EXERCISES

6. Loaded words. All writing contain bias. We try to be “fair” in reporting facts, but at our best we all hove a perspective that is personal and slanted. Writers and readers often believe they are writing or reading an objective account of events, but that is a near-impossible goal. Most often when we’re writing essays we’re concerned about imparting information. Sometimes, in fact more often that you might expect, the author uses emotion to convince readers. This is pathos, of course, and you know about using emotion as a persuasive device. In a subtle way the sound and connections of the words we choose continually influence our readers to feel with us, to pay attention, to trust us. Emotion also can be abused—think of pejoratives. Now read these statements that each describe the same event and consider the emotion each sentence intends to provoke in readers—who is being blamed? How does responsibility shift? Pay close attention to the use of emotionally loaded words:

• Men and women shouted and argued on Broadway last night, fearful of recent events in the Middle East.
• Last night a large mob blocked traffic and shouting and swinging their fists. 
• An unruly crowd of agitators frightened passersby as they made demands and shouted in the street.
• A group of people concerned about recent news from the Middle East assembled in the street to focus attention on America’s role in the conflict.

ASSIGNMENT: Write a series of three or four sentences about exactly the same event. Choose words that will trigger different emotions: sadness or concern, anger or irritation, and respect or sympathy. Write “true” versions of the same true event, each showing a differing bias through word choice and tone. Then explain. 

Next, look for writing that contains a pejorative. 

The use of a pejorative, which are inherently discriminatory and unfair, is name-calling and a cheat, and designed to damage reader perception of the action, organization, or person described. Pejorative labels convey bias. The use of pejoratives is sometimes subtle. Are the people gathering in the street “agitators,” “protesters,” “concerned citizens,” or “rioters”? The term used biases the listener to a predictable attitude. I want the rioters arrested. Protesters might have a valid message, but agitators are simply making trouble. “Politically correct” is an ironic term used exclusively as a pejorative with the goal of ridiculing others for common courtesy and fair-mindedness. Thus pejoratives are in some sense the opposite of euphemisms which try to conceal.  Instead, they defame. Pejoratives are sneaky and dishonest; you can find them in advertising and political rants.


7. The packed sentence. When we have a lot of information and not a lot of space, which should be happening in the shorter essays you will be writing this term, it’s necessary to have strategies in developing concise sentences. The trick is to pack the sentence with information while still giving the experience of reading something relatively simple.

•High school English teacher Natalie Munroe of Pennsylvania is in trouble because of her blog. 
•This story has been making the news across the country. 
•She was recently suspended because of what she had to say on her blog. 
•The blog was anonymous and named no names of schools or students.

ASSIGNMENT: Begin with a string of facts or shorter sentences and then rewrite them into a more concise sentence, as packed as you can manage without overloading the reader. Then rewrite the same information using a different sentence structure. Tighter and tighter nonfiction! Then explain.

one sentence: Nationwide newspapers report that high school English teacher Natalie Munroe of Pennsylvania has been suspended for what she posted on her personal blog, despite the fact that it was anonymous and named no names of schools or students.

shorter sentence: Pennsylvania high school English teacher Natalie Munroe was careful not to include identifying details in her personal blog, but her blog-related suspension has been reported nationwide.  

You can probably see how this assignment is related to the monster sentence, but the goal here is to say more in fewer words. Write concisely. 

The exercises I am posting on Fridays are from the college writing classes I taught through 2018/19. I had originally used Steering the Craft as a text, but a student complained (politely) in his end-of-term Exercise Reflection that Le Guin’s exercises were too clearly oriented to fiction. He wanted craft essays for nonfiction. So I created a series of nonfiction, essay-specific exercises. I was asked by a reader to share my teaching, and this is what I found to share. I had not thought I would need to include the introduction each time, but since some readers are new to the series, here it is:

Writing Good Nonfiction Sentences… one [or, in this case, two] exercise each Friday.

NOTE: several of these exercises are inspired by How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One by Stanley Fish, Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin, and other sources.

A good essay has a goal—to convince, delight, enlighten, instruct, warn, or to review and question. Part of becoming an accomplished writer involves understanding the work that every word must accomplish. 

Each sentence has specific work to do. In a very real sense, sentences are the basic building blocks of writing. Lay down one word after another until you have created a logical idea in the mind of the reader and that is a sentence. Do it with grace and style and that’s good writing. But in order to write a good sentence (or to read and appreciate a good one), it helps to understand the various ways a sentence can function in the essay. Forget about content (for the moment) and try pushing the envelope with these exercises about sentences. 

THE EXERCISES: These assignments require you to write a nonfiction sentence. Sometimes they require that you write several. Look at the examples and follow the directions after “assignment.” AND Whether this is specified or not in the instructions, on the same page you should also explain the sentence in detail. Don’t be surprised if the explanation takes up a lot more space and time than the sentence. What does the sentence you wrote accomplish? What did you learn by writing it and thinking about it? How might you have learned a skill you can transfer to other writing? 

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I find I am not writing much or reading much recently… except writing blog posts and reading online news and the blogs of friends. I tend not to count online news or blogs as actual reading or writing. What I am doing is walking and running, weaving and knitting.

For those keeping up with our condo news, the vote is a dead heat about whether to repipe. Gary, uncharacteristically, has declared the vote a win/win. If it passes, that’s good for the water situation. If it doesn’t pass, we save $500/month for the rest of our lives. Win/win.

And I have to say that running at 122 pounds is a lot easier than at 142 pounds, which is the weight I mostly ran in during my forties and fifties except during cross country season.