Descriptive Outlining

In this week's posts, I am going to write about my experience doing Dr. Richard’s Descriptive Outline Activity and how it made me grow as a writer and a student. Our wonderful professor explained to us all that descriptive outlining allows you to extend your understanding of what a text SAYS into how it is working rhetorically (what the writing is doing/trying to do). We began by skimming, “The Case for Reclaiming the Black Beauty Supply,” piece and brainstormed what we thought the writing was doing.

Dr. Richard then gave us this awesome and helpful chart that helped us to essentially create a descriptive outline. There were two parts to this activity: summarize what each paragraph is saying and then go back and describe what each paragraph does (what is the rhetorical purpose it serves the writer/argument. We did this by focusing on one paragraph at a time and building both these ideas.

In the beginning, it took me quite some time to formulate decent points for each category, but as I practiced I became faster. As I wrote the summary of the ideas in the paragraph, I realized what I thought was an overview actually sounded more like an argument/what the paragraph was doing, so I moved it to the other box. I was not the only one though! My other classmates also said they found themselves doing the same thing!

Overall, this activity allowed me to break someone else’s writing down and understand how important it is to be purposeful with your writing but also be able to set the scene clearly and concisely.