I actually think that all of Noden's Variations on Imitation are something i would want to incorporate into the classroom in a unit based around Imitaion as a means of practice and skill development...it is difficult for me to select just one that I think would be better to use than the others, but if i had to i'd probably pick The Hamill Approach. I like that it takes the structure of an excerpt of good writing and lets students use it as somewhat of a skeleton for the actual body that they will be building with words, particularly descriptive words and the elemental "brushstrokes" such as participles and absolutes. I think that this would go over well in a classroom because it would supply students with a strong enough basis to work with, especially if it were a piece of writing that they themselves picked out or if it were an excerpt from a book that the class decided on together as being a good jumping-off point. This would also work well because as long as the excerpt is stripped to its bare essentials of conjunctions and blanks are left for nouns/adjectives/participles/etc, the door is left open for students to be creative and write about whatever they so desire.
I think this is a little more creative than the Franklin option, although I do think that option is a good way to get students to see how to use good image grammar and descriptive writing, and how that usage adds to an otherwise dry or unoriginal narrative.
I do think that the Pooh Perplex is another great variation on imitation that i would use in my classroom, however I think that for it to live up to its potential would would be better assigned as homework or as a project that could be revisited for revision later on to allow for more time to think it through and be original.
My only problem with the Van Gogh approach is that it may be hard for students to really be able to get into the mindset of someone like a corporate bureaucrat or news reporter because to be able to write in those personas would often require lots of arcane jargon that students may not posess. Because of this, they may chose to select personas that they are more familiar with which rely heavily on stereotypes in the media, such as rappers; a reliance that, when translated into writing, may offend some peers.
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Kelly you make great points in your blogs. We just wanted to let you know that Group #1 has read your blogs thus far and appreciates what you have shared. We, however, would like to respond and comment later this week, when time is not an issue, to give our comments to your blogs the time, depth and respect that they have earned.
I'm so glad that you brought in the idea of having students choose their own passages to imitate. I actually wanted to do that, but didn't have the time. I think this would help students really "own" their work, which would make it more meaningful and therefore memorable. I know I would have enjoyed that as a student.
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