2.7 Step 2: Organize Your Topics
Manipulating index cards is embodied thinking.
| Table 2-2B. The scaffolding steps covered so far in Chapter 2. | |
|---|---|
| Step 1 | Generate broad topics: Write each topic on the blank side of an index card |
| Step 2 | Organize and evaluate topics: Manipulate index cards into a plausible order |
In Step 2 (Table 2-2B), you think about, evaluate, and organize the topics you created in Step 1. Importantly, in Step 2 you organize and evaluate general topics. You have not yet created paragraph-level topics, or written complete sentences, because you want to protect your creativity from premature evaluation (Elbow, 1981).
How do you think about, organize, and evaluate topics in Step 2? You exploit the index card affordances described in Chapter 1. You think about your topics by reading and rearranging the index cards you created in Step 1. Remember, you perform embodied thinking when you rearrange index cards.
The main activity you perform in Step 2 involves grouping related topic cards together. You think about relationships between topics you have written on different cards. If you see a relationship between two cards, then you place them closer together in your display. By arranging cards according to their relatedness, you scaffold your thinking about topics, because you need not think about or remember relations between topics. Instead, you simply see topic relations revealed by card positions.
As you read and rearrange cards, you engage in another important activity: removing redundancies. You often discover two different cards express nearly identical topics. When you find such redundancy, you might throw one card away, removing it from your display. Or you might replace both cards with a new card whose topic encompasses the two redundant topics. Embodied thinking includes removing redundant index cards!
Another important activity in Step 2 involves arranging your topic cards in order. Remember your manuscript must present topics in a meaningful order, so, you begin to look for a narrative structure by rearranging your cards. Perhaps you will arrange topics in order from general to specific. Perhaps you will recognize your topics require a logical order, because your reader won’t understand Topic Y unless you have already written about Topic X. The index card scaffold provides one advantage: you can rearrange cards as you consider different topic orders. By looking at one topic order on your display surface you can see its advantages and disadvantages; you explore different orders by moving topic cards around.
Manipulating index cards while exploring topic orders typically requires arranging index cards on a two-dimensional surface. For instance, I often place similar cards beside each other horizontally on a display board. I represent topic order – moving from one general topic to the next – by placing adjacent topics near each other vertically on the display board.
As I develop my narrative structure by rearranging index cards on my display, I might realize I need another topic. I fix the problem by jotting down the missing topic on a new index card which I then add to my display. Also, I often become aware my topics belong to different sections or subsections of a manuscript. My display lets me arrange my cards so I can easily see my different sections. I often add new cards – usually cards which have a different color from my topic cards – upon which I jot section or subsection titles.
In summary, in Step 2 you think about the topics you generated in Step 1 by rearranging index cards on a display surface. By having the cards available in your world, you need not remember topics, because you can read them. By following a system when you rearrange your cards in two dimensions (e.g., by placing similar cards near one another, by developing topic narratives in columns, by using different colored cards to represent different things such as topics vs titles) you can see your manuscript’s narrative structure take shape before your eyes.
