Boxes, Dolls, Peacocks, and Games: Visual and Physical Teaching of Writing

“New Visions for College Writing” was the theme of the 2024 MnWE Conference at Normandale College in Bloomington, Minnesota. The editors of the MnWE Journal invited reflections on this concept. The following is not a scholarly essay but rather my story of teaching writing using a visual pedagogy. Though I taught it for almost four decades, it still is “new”—little used. Yet I found it highly successful in FYC (first-year composition), and many of its more advanced techniques also worked well in Comp II with first-, third-, and fourth-year students at state and Research I universities.

I began using visual methods in 1983 in my first college teaching assignments, FYC and third-year Comp II, both required.  My state university was receiving national and regional listings as a Top Party School. The drinking age was 18. Most of my students were 18-22. I’d worked earlier with teens as a social worker, but now I was their teacher. How, I wondered, could I compete with whatever my students were exploring during nights and weekends?z

The answer was visualization with physical applications such as group work. Students found all these methods challenging, enjoyable, and effective.

Part I: Boxes and Dolls

Picture me in an FYC classroom with students seated in one large circle. On a small table in the middle, I set a 10 by 14” clear-plastic tray and three similar but smaller ones inside it. “Come watch,” I beckon with my hands. “Closely around me.”

I point at the large tray. “What is this?”

No answer. “A paper,” I say. What are the three trays inside it?”

Someone might say, “Paragraphs?” “Close,” I say. “These are three body sections.” Then I take a big handful of Guatemalan worry dolls—1 inch each—from a bag and drop little bunches of them into two to four piles in each smaller tray. “And these?”

Usually someone answers, “Sentences!”

“Excellent,” I reply. “And each little pile,” I add, pointing at one, “is a paragraph.”

Then at the beginning and end of each pile, I place a twice-as-long, two-inch worry doll. “Here at the beginning of each pile,” I tell everyone, “is a topic sentence, and at the end, another sentence summarizing what the paragraph says: a subject sentence and summary sentence. Before you show a finished paper to anyteacher or boss, add these to your longer paragraphs.” (I will repeat this at least a dozen times throughout the term.) “Once you’ve done that, then you know exactly what you’re saying, and it will be time—at the very end—to write you conclusion and introduction.”

Then I place a carved elephant at the beginning of each body section. “Each of these,” I say, “is a topic sentence for the entire body section—for all of the paragraphs in its box. When you write your introduction, it should repeat in some way your three elephants—your three main body-topic sentences.”

I point again: “Introduction, body sections, and conclusion: tell them what you’re going to say, say it in the body, and tell them what you said. That is how you make yourself clear to your readers.”

As a teacher, you can develop many variations of this. Any trays, dolls, or objects will do (though the symbolism of human or animal sentences makes them seem more alive). For advanced FYC and Comp II students, drawing the equivalent on a whiteboard often works better. But for students in FYC—especially some who were not in the top quarter of their senior class and struggle to write more than a five-paragraph theme—the physical nature of this demonstration can be revelatory.

Problem

Why use visualization with physical applications? I taught five years at that party university, another five as a comp lecturer at a Level I research university, and eighteen where I settled into a tenure-line position in an outer-suburb community college. What writing courses did I teach, and to whom? At the first and second schools, students primarily were 18-25 and middle-class; I taught both FYC and, to juniors and seniors, Advanced Research Writing (general) and disciplinary writing in five areas (e.g., “Writing in the Health Sciences”). In my final school, the community college, most of my students took Comp I and II in one year. The majority of students were first-year, first-generation college students ages 16-40 from low- or lower-middle-income families. A fourth to a half were people of color/immigrants/children of immigrants—a mix of Latin, Hmong, Somali, African Americans, and other Asians and Africans. Most students in all these schools and levels were able to learn faster and better using the visual and hands-on models of teaching I gave them, which I adjusted to each class’s abilities and experiences.

So, what was the problem? It was their prior learning. The difficulty was not a lack of process. They’d learned that so much, in fact, one FYC class in the late 1980s actually groaned in unison when I said I was going to teach it. (I learned not to mention it, even though I still guided them through a simpler version using multiple drafts.) Many of them in high school and earlier to use, in exact order, eight, ten, twelve—even eighteen—steps: Peter Elbow on steroids.

Nor was there ever a lack of K-12 teachers’ abundant training, earnestness, hard work, and decent pay. The problem lay elsewhere.

To wit, most students have learned in school to work with texts. Their natural mode of reading, internally, is oral. They “talk” their texts in their heads, sentence by sentence, neither looking ahead nor back. And all but perhaps the top quartile of them cannot easily organize their writing using their inner textual talking. I myself, when I read for pleasure, still have my oral voice working in my head, phrase by phrase. Images come and go with the words, but the verbal phrases are the center of my reading experience. And this is true of the great majority of FYC students.

Such reading is not necessarily a problem in pleasure or casual reading—until the reader turns to writing (or reading for learning and research). Then producing (or seeing) organizational units becomes necessary. And that is a mapping skill—an ability to work with visual units.

Do students even see organizational units in writing? Not much, if at all. In fact, the really good writing they read in textbooks is successful precisely because the transitions, topic sentences, and subtitles make the reading flow with few or no breaks in attention, keeping the reader from consciously noticing the essay or chapter’s visual units.

As a result, even when we show students samples of well-written essays, they don’t see the visual units unless they specifically are taught to do so. Instead, they just follow the road through the trees that the author has made and then wonder, when they are done with the exemplary paper, “How can I ever write like that?”

The better students, of course, get it, sooner or later. For a variety of socio-economic reasons, they have learned to see the organizational units. And often this top quartile also know how to outline in some manner—a boring, rigid, dying method of teaching the writing of first drafts. Far better methods exist for first drafts. But students who know how to outline an essay they’ve read are getting closer to seeing the visual units. Unfortunately, surveys show that a majority of students in high school and introductory college courses do not read assigned textbooks regularly, and few take notes. And the majority of today’s FYC students spent their time in high school looking mostly at social images with little text on the small screens of their cell phones. It is no wonder that most FYC students cannot see the forest for the trees, and that this problem continues for many through several years of college.

And we, the writing faculty, are expected to show students how to build highways in all their papers for other classes. Once I learned to teach visual patterns, I saw my students learning how to organize about twice as fast as they did in my first ten years of teaching. Through visual teaching in FYC, almost all of them could transition in just a few months from high school to college writing. And better-prepared students and those in Comp II or upper-division comp received confirmation and clarity for what they had learned with difficulty, and became able to master their development of papers for majors, application letters, graduate schools, and professions.

Part II: Visual and Physical Simulations

Imagine the first week of my Comp I class in a room filled mostly with 16- to 20-year-olds seated in a big circle. A fourth or more still are in high school, and they come from a variety of cultures. I stand before them in the last ten years of my career. “Over the weekend,” I say, “you’ll read the first chapter of your nonfiction literature assignment. Then you’ll write a rough-draft paper of at least five hundred words. Get out your pens and paper: here’s the pattern you must use.” I want them to make raw notes to imprint them: handwriting or typing uses a different part of the brain than reading the formal sheet I’ll give them later.

“You’re all going to write several different kinds of rough drafts this term. Your five-hundred first draft this time will be an analysis. In it, you’ll write what three different types of people—for example, a doctor, teacher, and parent—might think of this reading. Write at least 150 w. about what each type might say. Quote from the reading at least twice for each type of person, and your quotes must come from throughout the chapter you read, not just one section.” With each requirement, I add to a list of them on the whiteboard so that they have yet one more way of processing the words of the assignment.

“This is just a rough draft,” I add. Don’t worry about grammar or spelling. Just let it flow. But I want it in five parts: start with one or two paragraphs for each type of viewpoint, and then an introduction and a conclusion.” I draw the five parts as boxes on the whiteboard and ask them to do the same on their notepaper.  And to make the visual organizing clearer, I say, “Now add to your drawing five subtitles: ‘Introduction,’ ‘First Viewpoint,’ ‘Second Viewpoint,’ ‘Third Viewpoint,’ and ‘Conclusion.’ Or you can name the viewpoints, if you want (like ‘Doctor,’ ‘Teacher,’ ‘Parent’). Subtitles are used in most professions and majors, or at least an extra line space to indicate a new section is starting.”

Then I tell them, “The assignment will be easiest for you if you write the three body sections first, one or more paragraphs each.” I tap the three on the board for visual and physical emphasis. “Remember to do your introduction and conclusion last—after you already know what you’re going to say. In your intro, tell me what subject you chose to write about from your reading. Then add all three viewpoints in one sentence each.”

Next, I offer examples of a three-viewpoint group: butcher, baker, candlestick maker; high school student, college person, professional; etc. Then we look together at a one-sheet student example of this type of analysis. I point to the topic sentence starting each paragraph: e.g., “A person from Africa might say about your reading that….” I employ another visual device by asking them to circle these topic
sentences. (For samples, see http://www.richard.jewell.net/WforC/WRITEREAD/Analysis/default.htm.)

Today with AI? I would tell them it’s easier, faster, more convincing to readers, and more pleasurable to come up with their own ideas than to use AI, at least at the beginning. I wuld add that AI can be useful in a later, research stage if you then verify what it says using scholarly or factual public sources. “I’ll show you later this term,” I would add, “ how to use AI to start finding some sources that support your ideas.  Don’t use it now, though. I use an AI detector. And besides, it’s faster and easier in this first draft to do your own.” If I had any doubts about it, I would have them write their first draft by hand in the classroom.

The next time we meet, the fun starts. I place them in small groups three to four, with each person choosing a specific role, a technique I learned in a graduate-level course on how to manage groups.

“Count off by five (or six),” I say, to separate them from friends. “In your group, choose your role: a Facilitator, Recorder, Reader to the class, and if you have a fourth, a Social Encourager.” Positive tension ripples through the room as I very briefly explain each role. When they have moved chairs to form their groups, I say, “Next, go to the student union. Pretend that each of your groups is a team of social science scientists. Choose, as a group, two or more people interacting with each other; watch them from a distance for six minutes. Or watch a counter salesperson’s interactions. As good social scientists, don’t let them know you’re observing them. All of your group members should take very factual notes about what you see. Then return here.”

Their group instructions are on the whiteboard when they return. I read them aloud. “1. In one minute, choose three types of people (entirely unrelated to whom you were watching): for example, a janitor, a policewoman, and a lawyer. You may be serious or silly in your choices [thus encouraging creative types].

“2. Facilitators, lead your group in developing 50+ words in four minutes each on how your three types would view the interactions you saw in the Student Union. Have your writer write down all 150 words in the twelve minutes you work on this. 3. Then for another two or three minutes, add a quick introduction stating each of the three points of view. If time allows, add a conclusion of any kind.” As they work, I circle the room, asking if anyone has a question.

When the time is up, I say, “4. The reader of each group now will stand up, face the class (not me), and read your group’s analysis aloud.” All of this process creates a positive social pressure to perform. Students usually feel challenged, engaged, and effective in using these directions.      Then I simply assign them their readings: from their reader, and from their textbook chapter on writing an analysis, which includes the specific assignment details and sample papers.

How do students like this? Some are quite serious about it; others make it into a game. Almost all respond positively. Some have told me in evaluations that at first they thought going to the student union in a group was just for a little fun, but then when they had to write their own paper at home, suddenly they realized, surprised and relieved, that they knew how to do it. The visual and physical activities deeply imbed the visual patterns.

An Essay’s Organs

“Organizing” comes, of course, from the word “organ.” In Latin and Greek, an “organ” is an implement or musical instrument—literally a “tool” with which one works. Indeed, the tools of organizing typically are 10-25% of the words and phrases in an essay counting if you count all of the words that are not strictly new content. Such words—topic sentences, summaries, transitions, introductions and conclusions—are a text’s working tools. They support and channel the details into a readable flow.

After a few weeks, when my FYC students had written one or two first drafts, I would give them a “tool” training using a three-dimensional physical example and two-dimensional visual maps. In Comp II with its more experienced writers, I only used the maps.

In FYC, the physical example was a Russian nesting doll. Holding it up, I would say, “This is a book. Notice it has a head, body, and feet. The head is the book’s introductory chapter; the feet, the last chapter. The body is all the chapters between.” I would take the outer doll apart, ask people to pass it around (for additional physical embedding), and then hold up the next doll within.

“This, I say, “is a chapter inside the book. It also has a head, body, and feet.” I hand it around.

With the next doll, I say, “This is a body section in a chapter. Most chapters have several separate body sections.” Then, next, “This is a longer paragraph with its own introduction, body, and conclusion.”

Next, “This is a quotation inside a paragraph. A well-supported quotation has its own summary sentence before it, the quotation is the body, and its feet are a concluding explanation afterward.”

For the tiny fifth doll, I say, “This is a sentence. A longer, well-developed sentence has a strong, clear, beginning subject, a middle verb, and often some details at its end.”

I pause and look around at them. “Do you want to be clear to your readers? This is how: head, body, feet. Write any way you want in first drafts. But if you’re writing for an audience, such as professionals in your future job, you need to revise your papers so your readers can see your dolls. Do you want your papers to flow like honey in the minds of your teachers and future work colleagues, or do you want them to struggle with each of your paragraphs to figure out what you mean? They need a simple-to-understand paper with organized sections, paragraphs, and sentences. We’re going to work for several weeks on how to use the tricks of the writing trade to do this easily.”

Immediately after, I’d start “Dolls II”—the “Boxes and Dolls” demonstration above in FYC only. Then, in both FYC and Comp II, we would start looking at visual maps of paragraphing, transitions, and sentences.

One way of working with paragraphs and transitions was simply to show them two-dimensional boxes for nine different types of paragraphs (introduction, conclusion, body section paragraph, transition paragraph, et al.). Each paragraph map showed a few words at beginning and end to identify its type or use (e.g., “Thesis,” “First argument,” “Topic sentence,” etc.). I then would ask them in small groups, using the roles above, to develop a short paper on any subject they wanted using most of the nine types of paragraphs and read it to everyone. I allowed students to be as creative as they wanted, even making up subjects, as long as they used the types of paragraphs correctly. Again, students found this challenging and fun.

Transitions were another mapping event. In class, everyone first received a one-page, single-spaced sample student essay, and I asked them in small groups to mark the thesis/main subject, topic sentences, and ending summary sentences in the introduction, conclusion, and sections and then compare results with each other. Second, especially in FYC, I then handed them a similar paper; however, its subject statements, topic sentences, and ending summary sentences all had been replaced by blank areas. I then asked the students, again in groups, to supply their own working as a group, and then read the results aloud to everyone. The papers with workable sentences and those without good ones became obvious upon being read, another example to the entire class.

We also looked at other types of professional and academic papers that they were not learning in the class, especially in Comp II. What did all these lessons accomplish? Many FYC students finally, and for the first time, “got it” about college and professional writing, many of them as if it were a revelation that once had seemed far out of sight. And Comp II students especially absorbed these lessons. Often they took the lead in producing group papers. For details, see two links:

http://www.richard.jewell.net/WforC/REVISE+EDIT/REVISE/BasicLayouts.htm and http://www.richard.jewell.net/WforC/REVISE+EDIT/REVISE/Paragraph.htm.

Part III: The Visual Sentence and Practice Rounds

What about writing sentences—especially for struggling students in FYC? We as a profession now mostly eschew teaching grammar or punctuation. And AI now will rewrite a student’s paper for them. But not only are AI revisions less unique and interesting, but sentence-weak students can learn to make powerful and controlled sentences more easily using visual techniques. And for middle-of-the-road students, visualization helps them understand how to use several ways to avoid the deadly comma splice, and preferably some of the minor punctuation errors that occur in fragments and run-ons. Much of resolving such problems has to do with combining two sentences properly, and with using more readable, orderly, subject-verb-modifiers sentences.

I decided that to accomplish this, I needed a visual symbol of the sentence. After much thought, I settled on the peacock. (The fox was a close second.) I explained to students that a peacock represents the “SVM” or “subject-verb-modifier” model of a sentence. I said, “In the clearest writing for professional readers, the subject—the head—comes first, followed closely by the main verb or body. Then, usually, are the added phrases: the peacock’s showy tail feathers. I drew a peacock on the whiteboard using several colors of markers and then pointed out, “If you erase the head or the body of the peacock, your bird—and your sentence in English—dies.” (I also explained that a command has an understood subject.) “The remains of the bird,” I added, “whether just the head, the body alone, or either of them with the tail feathers—these are sentence fragments. They are in danger of making your professional papers sound like you were poorly educated.”

“What about the beautiful feathers on a peacock?” I asked. “Keep them mostly on the tail, where they often are very helpful. But whatever you write, do not place long feathers on the beak of your bird. It won’t be able to see where it is going, and your sentence will trip over itself with punctuation or grammar errors.” I then told them an experiment I performed comparing two very similar classes, same times of day, same types of students (including the four to five guys in each who sat in the back wearing baseball caps). One of the classes was allowed to use many long introductory phrases; the other was required to avoid all introductory phrases unless they were one to three words long. The class using the long introductory phrases had 25% more sentences in their final papers with punctuation or grammar errors. (And just to be fair, I gave everyone in the first class a slightly increased point total because it was unfair that they weren’t taught how to avoid long introductory phrases.)

I also said, “If you use too many introductory phrases, readers will become impatient and tired because they have to concentrate harder to wait for the subject and verb. “For example,” I said, “consider this sentence: “In the morning, before dawn, after the dew was gone, hungry, pacing, restless, thinking of its dreams from the night before, wondering about breakfast, the peacock waited.” I then would add, “First drafts? Write your sentences in any way you want. But then, in later drafts, try to place your subject and verb near the start.” I also taught students that the head feather on a peacock symbolized how you can add a few modifying words before or immediately after the subject.  William Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Márquez are two examples of writing using SVM-peacock sentences: both often write 100-200 word sentences, yet they are very readable: they start with their subject and then quickly get to the verb. For more on peacocks, see http://www.richard.jewell.net/WforC/REVISE+EDIT/EDIT/Sentences.htm.

And then (in FYC but usually not Comp II), I would add a physical imprinting method for SVM-peacock sentence making. Students would sit in one large circle and take turns, one at a time. The first person would start with a noun or pronoun. The next would repeat it and add a verb. The third person would repeat them and add modifiers. Then the next person would start with a new subject. Typically I asked students to complete three rounds. This better imbedded in them that easily-read sentences are composed of three primary segments: subject, verb, and modifiers.

Taming the Comma Splice

The SVM-peacock model, along with the large-circle rounds, also helped me teach comma-splice avoidance. I would explain that SVMs—peacocks—almost always must be divided by punctuation, but never by just a lonely comma. Each SVM—each peacock—almost always must be divided. The first student had to offer a complete sentence. The next would repeat it and add a period, comma conjunction, semicolon, or semicolon-conjunctive adverb-comma (e.g., “; however,”). And the third student then would repeat the previous student and add another divider and complete sentence, etc. In FYC, I added the four types of dividers to the whiteboard, especially in classes needing more help with writing, and point to each one not yet completed. Generally, Comp II (and more advanced FYC) groups simply needed the same explanation with SVM markers, and no practice rounds. While FYC students in evaluations found the peacocks somewhat to very helpful, Comp II people found the peacocks only somewhat helpful on average, but the SVM modeling much more helpful.

My students wrote papers with far better sentence structures and fewer punctuation errors when I started teaching them the SVM-peacock visual model. Poorer students demonstrated better control of their sentences and used fewer comma splices. And better-experienced writers showed more masterful playfulness with how to write their complex thoughts using accurate dividers of two sentences, rather than just simple periods.

Conclusion

Empowering students with visual and physical activities became a marker of my teaching style. However, the teaching of writing still remains an oral-textual tradition. This is unfortunate for many students: bright, well-prepared learners handle oral-textual learning well but can develop their writing faster with some visual methods. And the average college student, especially—and even more so those who struggle with writing—can literally leap forward at times by practicing visual and physical paradigms for writing.

I used many traditional methods, too. This essay is not to deny them. Responses to readings, thorough research, sample papers, and plenty of process with multiple, increasingly-complex rough drafts—all were part of the brew I mixed for students. I also never graded students’ drafts, instead giving them marks of completion when the next step of a draft was sufficient. To receive an “A,” they needed to finish at least one final high-quality, well-edited draft with as many earlier drafts as needed, limited only by the time of the term’s end.

How did students respond? Generally, they rated my classes highly in course evaluations and the “grade your teacher” online sites. I developed a reputation as “tough but fair.” Many students took a second writing class from me. I also received major student-body best-teacher awards at two schools and a number of citations from individual students at others.

What did I think of all this? Some of my favorite comments from students came when they told me how they had succeeded with papers in other classes or at their jobs. I’ve been retired for five years but still receive thank-you emails about their successes. It is their success that counts. But I must admit, boxes, dolls, peacocks, and games made most of my writing classes a joy.

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Richard Jewell taught as a tenure-line faculty member at Inver Hills College for eighteen years and, beforehand, for five years as a full-time composition specialist in the English Department of the University of Minnesota. Before that, he was an adjunct working at several schools. He has three master’s degrees in English and in religious studies and is cofounder and General Coordinator of MnWE. His website is http://www.RichardJewell.org; his email address, richard (at) jewell.net.