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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.

Language:
English Language

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.

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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