entry 5: the card strategy

 I am really glad I had the opportunity to use Kucer and Rhodes' (1986) Card Strategy Lesson in class last week. I have never brainstormed this way for my writing in the past. I am still struggling to commit to a topic for my Genre Pieces Project, so when we began the Card Strategy Lesson in class I just went with the topic I thought I knew most about: service/therapy dogs.

I was able to come up with a multitude of words/phrases relating to this topic, such as: specially trained, companions, schools, libraries, unconditional love, physical health, disabilities, blind, all ages, intelligent, helpful, happy, mental health, therapeutic, and calming. I know, I felt like I came up with a lot of ideas too! We then chose 7-11 cards and arranged them in an order that made sense to us. The way I thought about this process was to construct a sentence or two using the words/phrases I wrote on my index cards. It wasn't until I met with a partner that I realized there was a much better way to do this.

When my partner went to arrange my index cards, she did it in a very different order than I had originally arranged them. She had arranged my cards in a way where the ideas built off of one another. This made me realize that the way she had arranged them was much more beneficial for brainstorming than mine was; the way she arranged them provided somewhat of an outline for paragraphs of ideas to build off of each other, whereas the order I had placed the cards in only formed two sentences.

It wasn't until I got to my freewrite after this lesson that I realized I was leaning more towards not choosing this topic for my Genre Pieces Project. After talking to my friend and BLT writing group member Taylor, she helped me eliminate the topic of service/therapy dogs, but also got me thinking about another topic. This new topic is very personal and can be difficult for me to talk about, but I think I would be able to compose some really powerful and meaningful pieces of writing based on this new topic.

Reflecting on how my partner in class arranged my index cards and now potentially having a new topic, I think I am going to try using Kucer and Rhodes' (1986) Card Strategy again and see what ideas come to mind for the cards. I think this is a different brainstorming strategy than I am used to, but I think it's a great way to get ideas flowing that are related to the main idea of a topic. I am glad that I had the opportunity to pair with someone who used this process differently than I originally had because I feel that their way really opened my eyes to how much more beneficial this strategy can be when used the right way.

References

Kucer, S. B. & Rhodes, L. K. (1986). Counterpart strategies: Fine tuning language with                             language. The Reading Teacher, 40(2), 186-193.