Description
Before you begin this task, review the prompt for your first major writing assignment.
Assignment 1 Tracking the Conversation-1.docx
This task will give you the opportunity to explore mapping (or "clustering"), a method of visual thinking that helps some writers in the early stages of composing a text (like an essay).
YOUR TASK
[Note: This exercise comes from Bruce Ballenger's The Curious Writer, Brief 5th Ed., 2017, 81].
STEP 1: Begin with a blank page. Choose a core word, phrase, name, idea, detail, or question. Write it in the middle of the page and circle it. (You might begin with a BIG idea, like "Hurricane Katrina", or "broken levees" for this assignment).
STEP 2: Relax and focus on the core word or phrase, and when you feel moved to do so, build a strand of associations from the core, circling and connecting each item. Write other details, names, dates, place names, phrases and so on-- whatever comes to mind.
STEP 3: When a strand dies out, return to the core and begin another. Keep clustering until the page looks like a web of associations. Doodle if that helps you relax and focus.
Here is an example of what a map-in-progress might look like:
STEP 4: When you feel the urge to write, stop clustering and use one of the strands as a prompt for free writing.
Explanation & Answer
Hey, check it out
Running Head: MAP THE CONVERSATION
Map the Conversation: Visualize Connections
Name
Institutions
1
MAP THE CONVERSATION
2
Map the Conversation: Hurricane Katrina
In mapping the conversation, I first came up with the labels on the map by identifying the
two people were talking to each other and were talking about the same thing. Next is to identify
the keywords that really connect the people in the conversation and picked one which was the most
common. So looking at the map developed one can identify the keywords and where they have
been identified.
For the first cluster or camp, the keyword that I have used is the location. When I realized
that Eyerman, (2015) was discussing the locations where Hurricane Katrina occurred. Hurricane
Katrina is known to have made landfall on Florida and Louisiana. It is believed that it caused
catastrophic damage, especially in the New Orleans city together with its surroundings. It was
category one when it hit Florida with very strong winds.
Eyerman (2015) also indicated that there were several levee...