Sheehy English 9

The first assignment for you to complete as you read your book is to predict what you think will happen. In one sense, predicting is an easy thing to do, since it’s hard to be criticized for being wrong when you’re trying to predict the future. Who among us can predict the future with confidence?

In another sense, though, it’s not that easy, because you want to predict well, to make logical sense; you want to predict the future based on what you know from the present, not separate from it. If a weatherman came on TV and told us it was going to be 98 degrees tomorrow (Dec. 15), we wouldn’t believe him unless he could explain what he’s seeing in the present that makes him think it will be so hot. Or, to jump into the sports world, if an ESPN analyst predicts that BHSU is going to win the NCAA Tournament in March, we’d think he was a looney who should be fired, because his prediction ignores the current information that suggests otherwise.

All that said, how do you make your predictions legitimate, and how do you stretch them out to 250 words? The key is to base your predictions off what you know so far. You’ve read a quarter of your book, so explain what you know, and then project from there.

There are two basic ways to organize your article. One is to say, “These are some key things that have happened so far” and list them. Then, having said those things, you transition to a batch of predictions: “Having said those things, this is therefore what I think will happen.”

Another way to organize this article is to explain and predict one element at a time. This would be like saying, “Here is one detail I’ve read so far, and here is what I predict will happen, given that detail.” From there, you move to the next detail, and so on: “Here is another detail I’ve read, and what I think will occur based on that detail.”

Still having trouble understanding how to arrange it? Maybe this diagram of those two ways of writing will help you.

One important tip I want to mention is that you do not want to over explain what you know and end up summarizing everything you’ve read for us. That’s boring for us to read, especially for the people in your group who have read the same thing and are well aware of what happened. The point of your article is to predict, not summarize. I would think that around half your article should be devoted to predictions and not explanation of plot events that have happened.

___________________________________________

Attribution:

Original image: ‘And We Have A Fast Moving Front Of Funky Grooves Approaching The East Coast…‘  by: Alex Erde

Original image: ‘let-me-out!‘  by: Esther Simpson

Trackback URI | Comments RSS