A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Earlier this week we shared Jot It Down in action. Today it’s Snip & Pin!

Snip & Pin Technique: Type your child’s writing into the computer. Print it out with one sentence per line. Then cut it up into individual sentence strips (or individual paragraphs, if that works better). Put the strips on the floor or on a table top and start moving them around to see what order makes the most sense or delivers the most surprise.

Brave Writer mom, Natalie writes:

Julie,

My daughter, Rachel, has been working on a paper for her Chemistry class this semester. She has been frustrated by the process of organizing all this material into the required seven page paper. As we read through her rough draft, it became apparent to me that the best course of action would be the snip and pin revision. She didn’t recall doing this before, but I assured her it would help.

I followed your directions to get it started. She saw all the strips of paper and was unsure how this would help. However, after an evening of moving sentences around, she is now a believer. It has been a wonderful way to work together and make her paper shine.

I’ve attached a picture of the process. It is a beautiful mess.

Thanks,
Natalie

The Snip & Pin Technique is thoroughly covered in The Writer’s Jungle and is also taught in our Kidswrite Basic class.

Image (cc)

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