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In this lesson we'll subject you to some verbs and predicates. Each one is a necessary part of a complete breakfas—er...sentence.
Choosing words carefully is important. You may end up vexing the assemblage of citizens you're conversing with...or you might even just plain bore...
ELA 4: Drafting 36 Views
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Description:
No, this isn't our video on how to dominate in fantasy football. We're talking about writing several drafts of a paper in order to get it just right. It may not be as thrilling as your fantasy league, but hey, it'll probably score you a better grade on that paper. And that's a lot better than scoring Cam Newton for your team...as far as school is concerned.
Transcript
- 00:04
[Coop and Dino singing]
- 00:13
We're about to say something that you've probably [Person writes sentence on paper]
- 00:15
thought before, but have been too afraid to say out loud...
- 00:19
Writing is hard work.
- 00:21
Whew, that felt good to get off our chests.
Full Transcript
- 00:24
Seriously, there are one million twenty-five thousand one hundred and nine point eight [Welcome sign to English Language with amount of words]
- 00:29
words in the English language.
- 00:31
…Yeah, we don't know what the point eight is either…
- 00:33
But trying to put all those words together in a way that sounds…well…good?
- 00:37
Yup. [Man typing on a computer]
- 00:38
Hard work.
- 00:40
So what we want to do is give you the tools to make the process as painless as possible.
- 00:44
One of those tools is something called drafting. [Football hits boy in head]
- 00:48
And no, it has nothing to do with football.
- 00:50
Drafting is the process of writing a draft, or a first version of something, and then
- 00:54
writing a new version of it – sometimes from scratch. [Coop discussing drafting]
- 00:57
And we know what you're thinking… "porcupines are pretty nifty."
- 01:01
…Oh.
- 01:01
Is that not what you were thinking?
- 01:03
Our bad.
- 01:04
Maybe you were thinking, "that sounds like even more work."
- 01:07
But trust us, in the long run, it actually makes things easier. [Girl running down a street]
- 01:10
See, the problem a lot of people have with writing is that they want to take the easy
- 01:14
way out.
- 01:15
So they write down everything they can come up with, put their name and date at the top
- 01:18
and call it a day.
- 01:19
But when we write like this, we end up trying to be perfect the first time around.
- 01:24
That also means we never try new things or explore new ideas. [Man and woman working in a science lab]
- 01:27
And guess what?
- 01:28
Sometimes the coolest ideas come from experimenting!
- 01:31
Like Frankenstein's monster! [Frankenstein's monster appears]
- 01:33
…Actually…never mind, that might be too much experimenting.
- 01:36
…We're just gonna…back away slowly…
- 01:38
Now, we know you're excited to get to your first draft, but before you start, you should
- 01:42
probably do some planning, because if you plan what you want to actually write about [A plan of writing an essay on porcupines]
- 01:46
beforehand, writing the draft becomes a piece of cake.
- 01:49
We also highly recommend writing with a piece of cake.
- 01:53
Yum. [Frankenstein's monster with a slice of cake]
- 01:54
Once you've come up with your game plan, you can do the fun stuff.
- 01:57
See, the beauty of writing a first draft is the knowledge that it's only the first draft!
- 02:01
You can go wild!
- 02:03
You can write every strange, bizarre, porcupine related idea that you come up with! [Frankenstein's monster painting ideas in a room]
- 02:07
…What?
- 02:08
Porcupines are cute.
- 02:10
Anyway, once you get all that crazy stuff out of your system, you can go through everything
- 02:13
and edit out all the stuff that might end up making you look like you've lost your marbles. [Man writing second draft on computer]
- 02:18
Y'know.
- 02:19
Like the porcupine stuff.
- 02:20
Then your second draft will contain only the best material from your first draft––even
- 02:23
some of those ideas that are so crazy they just might work.
- 02:27
Go through this process once or twice more, and you'll end up with your best and brightest [final draft printing]
- 02:32
ideas, without all the porcupine fluff.
- 02:34
And even though we made it sound a little bit chaotic, there's method to the madness,
- 02:38
because it's all planned out.
- 02:40
Each draft will only get better and better.
- 02:42
So when you write your draft today, remember to spend some time planning out what you want [Coop teaching about the drafting steps]
- 02:45
to write first – you'll thank yourself later.
- 02:48
Seriously, maybe buy a thank you card in advance or something. [Man holding a thank you card]
- 02:51
And once you finally start writing, don't be afraid to put down everything you can think
- 02:55
of – when you work on your revisions next time, you can keep the best and cut the rest.
- 02:59
Go wild, and have fun with it! [People partying with porcupines]
- 03:01
And maybe toss in a few porcupines, just for us.
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