In trying to wrap my mind around this weeks learning, I find myself thinking more of my own writing process than my students. Is always interesting to remember that I am basically qualified to teach this class on composition because it is assumed that I am a somewhat decent (dare I say talented) writer. I guess it should come as no surprise then that when I read an article like Janet Emig's that I think of how my own writing reflects her findings. I particularly liked the section that discussed writing as a form of learning that offers immediate and instantaneous feedback. When I think of my own revision process, I often imagine it beginning immediate after the first sentence is on the page. I often spend a significant portion of time wrestling with those first few sentences, sometimes even writing two or three opening paragraphs before settling on one that satisfies my needs. If only I could do the same thing when I speak. For example it would be wonderful when my wife walks in from a day at work that I would be able to revise my first words to her:
Draft 1: "Hold on one second, have to finish this 100 page reading then I will catch up with you. See you in about 2 hours."
Draft 2: "Hey honey, hope you had a good day, my one also... good. Can you check on the laundry?"
Draft 3: "Hey darling, you beautiful, why don't you toss your things down and we can catch up on our days together."
If only talking was like writing. A man can dream I guess.
Getting back to the article, I think it is important to make our students (and ourselves) recognize that writing is a unique opportunity to try something, fail, and then make immediate changes to improve it. Too often in my own writing, and even more frequently with my students writing, I treat each sentence as sacred and refuse to touch it unless someone points out a flaw in it. What is fantastic about writing is how it can be refined and polished up until the point of submission, and often even past that point. Writing alone is completely malleable, and unlike speaking, what is written can often be unwritten just as easily, at least until it is published (and who says in today's digital age even that is untouchable).
I am actually in the process of trying to reinforce the notion of revision to my students as they work on narrowing down to a research question for their exploratory essay. Up until today they were under the impression they would hand in their question today and that after that point they would be locked in, but instead I had them get together with their peers and revise their questions (leading many of them to completely change their questions) based off of the class discussion. They will be showing me Wednesday both the original draft and the revised draft in order to demonstrate that they understand that revision is a continuous and often revolutionary process. Hopefully I too can remember that writing is unique in the way that I am always able to get feedback on what has been written, and that I should look at each sentence as a opportunity to make a better one.
Drew, I think that's a really great idea to have your students workshop each other's questions even before they get started writing and researching. I'm definitely going to steal that for my next unit. I also liked how you forced them to change the question, no matter what. I feel like a way that that exercise could potentially flop would be just to suggest a revision, and then most students would be like "it's fine" and not revise. But with you forcing them to revise, then I think they could get a lot out of that workshop.
ReplyDeleteDrew, the little part where you talk about your greeting to your wife are hilarious. I think I should share it with my husband :-). I can relate to your wife on that.
ReplyDeleteI think you point out a very important thing in your blog - the importance to show students how writing gives them the flexibility to make mistakes and try different things, and then come back and revise to make it better. I was doing conferences this week, and a lot of students seem to be concerned that their drafts changed a lot from beginning to end, and I had to reinforce their confidence in the process by emphasizing how much better their paper has actually become from their first free-writing draft.
I believe that an appreciation for revision--if not how to do so effectively, at least the importance of it--is one of the most valuable things we can pass on to students. This sounds like a pretty good approach. Reminds me of something Beckett wrote (I may be paraphrasing): "Try again. Fail again. Fail better." I say that beats Yoda's.
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