Any topic (writer’s choice)
The Module 3 project asks you to synthesize sources as you write. However, you may not have much experience with synthesis. This assignment is meant to help you understand what synthesis is and how to synthesize ideas. Please apply the lessons from this assignment to your project.
For this activity, you should read Composing the Anthology: An Exercise in Patchwriting https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/books/writingspaces1/leary–composing-the-anthology.pdf by Christopher Leary along with Chapter 22 Synthesizing Ideas in our course textbook. After reading both, respond to the following 5 questions. You will upload your response as a Microsoft Word doc or docx file.
Based on Learys discussion, how do you understand patchwriting? Had you heard of this style of writing before now?
According to our textbook, what does it mean to synthesize sources? What do you see as some similarities and differences between synthesis and patchwriting?
How can you apply these ideas to your own project?
In one part of Learys article, he describes the process that anthologists go through when creating anthologies. He writes, While anthologists read, they think very strategically, trying to figure out where in the anthology a piece might go, if it will make it into the anthology at all, and what section or subsection it will go into (232). How can this description apply to your own process of reading various sources that you might use in your research? What does this suggest about you be thinking about as you conduct your own research?
Read over the example synthesis paragraphs provided on page 427 in our textbook. Do you consider these paragraphs examples of patchwriting, as Leary describes it? Why or why not? Look closely over these examples. How do they help you understand synthesis–and how to synthesize sources in your own writing?
On pages 226-228, Leary describes a time when he practiced patchwriting with several different poems. Based on how our textbook describes synthesis, do you think that Leary was synthesizing these poems? Why or why not?
