Telescoping:
Zeroing In On Your Topic
Today's Snack: Roll up fruit leather and peek through it like a
mini-telescope, before you devour it. Then drink some V8 juice, where nutrition
zeroes in from eight different vegetables!
____________________
Supplies:
Binoculars, telescope
or magnifying lens
2 pieces of paper |
Scotch tape | pen or pencil
Start
this activity outside, if you can. Get in pairs.
Look
at something that is in the distance. Maybe it's the farthest thing that you
can see from where you stand, something clear across the playground or park, or
something or someone on the other side of a football stadium.
What
do you see? Describe your observations to your partner.
Let
your partner spot something far away, and describe it to you.
Now,
both of you, look again with a focusing tool - a pair of binoculars, a
telescope, or get right up to it and look with a magnifying glass.
NOW
describe your observations again to each other.
Are
they different? You should have a lot more detail.
Now,
you should be able to read the words on signs or labels or books. Before you
used the focusing tool, you might not have even known there WERE signs or
anything with smaller print. With a closer look, you can get more meaning and
detail out of your observations.
See
how your focus narrows 'way in?
Notice
how much more detail you can see about the object on which you focus?
Instead
of a large blob that's hard to describe, you can zero in on one detail, see
colors, and understand how each part of what you're looking at is connected to
the other things that you can see, up close.
You
can have a much easier time describing what you see, when you're looking up
close, because you're not having to guess as much.
When
you're focused, you're a lot less vague. Imagine seeing a big marching band
parade by. If you watch the whole band, that's one impression - kind of a
jumble of colors and sounds and people in funny costumes moving in an unusual
way.
But
if you zero in on your friend, who plays the tuba, suddenly your impressions
get a lot more focused, detailed, specific and clear. You would've missed all
this if you hadn't been looking right at him, and only at him: the way his
cheeks puff out like mini-basketballs when he blows the tuba . . . how red his
face gets while holding the long notes . . . how the tuba shines in the sun . .
. how his left shoe is untied. . . .
You
could write a much better story zeroing in on your friend with his tuba, than
if you wrote about the whole band. That's because you FOCUSED when you took in
information.
That's the way it is with writing.
Writing needs a focus. When you get distracted away from your main point or
purpose, you tend to write 'way, 'way too much that is unnecessary. Your
message gets lost in the shuffle. But if you zero right in your purpose, and
ignore all those other interesting, but not quite important, details, your
writing will be a lot more powerful.
It
is very important to focus your writing, and zero in on your main point and the
purpose of your writing project. If you don't, it is easy to get distracted, go
off point, be too vague and confusing, and miss communicating the point
altogether.
Let's
practice this! No doubt there are thousands of items in the room where you are
sitting right now. But let's help you focus in on just one, or a few.
Roll
up one piece of paper into a long tube, like a telescope. Tape it shut.
Now
look around the room using your "telescope," until you find something that you
can write a story about.
On
the other piece of paper, write a story featuring whatever you can see through
your "telescope." Ignore everything else in the room. You can make up whatever
else you need to, to make a story starring that object. But it has to be the
main character or main feature.
For
example, if your "telescope" focused on the lightswitch, write a story in which
a student who doesn't understand something in class can run up to a magic
lightswitch, hit the switch, and all of a sudden, the student's brain suddenly
"gets it."
Wouldn't
THAT be great?
See
how much better the world would be, if everybody would focus a little more on .
. . focusing?
