Thread by @add_hawk, Thinking about the Bob Ross thing reminds me of some other useful [...]

C Thi Nguyen

add_hawk

Thinking about the Bob Ross thing reminds me of some other useful pedagogical theft I& #39;ve engaged in
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My new favorite lesson plans I straight up stole from Every Frame a Painting. I call it: "Wreck a Passage to See How it Works."

Thread:

If you haven& #39;t seen EFAP, is some of the best pedagogy around right now. It& #39;s all about the quiet work of film editing.

In the incredible Lateral Tracking Shot video, Zhou is trying to show you the subtle emotional effect of a lateral tracking shot. https://vimeo.com/95552335 ">https://vimeo.com/95552335&...

So he shows you the opening sequence of Pixar& #39;s Up, which uses it to great effect. And then he re-edits it with a different kind of cut, and it totally destroys the emotional effect. And suddenly you *see*, so vividly, why the original shot works so well.

I& #39;d been struggling with teaching students the importance of micro-transitions and quiet structure. And I saw this and was like, "Maybe this will work." So I tried wrecking a passage in class. And it worked beautifully - the students loved it and their writing got better

Here& #39;s how it works. We pick out a particularly lucid and clearly written passage from a paper they& #39;ve read. Then I surgically destroy it in front of them.

I copy it to a word file on projector. I start taking out key bits of micro-transition, like a "However" or and "If" or a "You might think" or a "For example". And then we re-read it after some cuts, and see how much less clear it is.

Then I make more cuts, and we re-read it again, until the thing is incomprehensible. I often like to take it to a point where all the *content* is there, but the lack of subtle bits of writing transition and reader-guidance makes it totally unnavigable.

Then we compare the wrecked version to the original, re-reading both. And I think this helps them *see*, in a gut and intuitive level, how much work is being done by a lot of this micro-structure.

Before this, I& #39;d been doing an exercise where students collaboratively write paragraphs together in small groups, we put them on the board, and then the class collaboratively improves them. That& #39;s a good one, too, but I think this "wreck it" exercise makes an excellent prelude.

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