Writing with a Brave, Drafting and Revising Eye - Essay Example

Writing with a Brave, Drafting and Revising Eye Writing college essays is an easy and pleasant process- not. Writing is everything as Ann Lamott says it is- frustrating and agonizing. But even she agrees with Donald M. Murray that something magical comes out from being persistent in writing. Authors such as Ann M. Penrose and Cheryl Geisler, Laurel Johnson Black, and Nancy Sommers assert that teachers also have to reflect if their interactions and feedbacks with their student writers either empower or hinder them from becoming better writers. Reading these texts, I have become more aware of my writing process, from research to drafting to revising. I am a student writer who enjoys reading numerous resources but have a hard time integrating them all because of drafting jitters and difficulty in maximizing the revision process. I enjoy reading different resources, including primary and secondary sources, because of their content and I learn something new also about the English language and writing styles. I like reading different texts because I enjoy learning something new every day. For instance, I learned from Lamott that even the best writers start with a “shitty first draft” (26), because it is not true that writing is as easy as sitting down and letting words flow, “bounding along like huskies across the snow” (22). Because of her, I feel less pressured in creating a perfect first draft. Furthermore, I love reading and learning something new about the English language and writing styles. Penrose and Geisler explore how students test the knowledge claims of texts (513), and though I am not yet confident in doing the same tests, I enjoy reading how each text challenges each other. From these texts’ conversations, I can find arguments that appeal to me the most because of their logic or emotional appeal or credibility. Reading is a mind- widening process, although, I know research and reading are only preliminary writing steps, followed by terrible draft writing jitters. I have draft jitters because of the inability to quite down the voices in my head before and as I write my first draft. Getting started is the most dreadful stage of writing for me. I can relate to what Lamott says when she feels that she cannot begin because of all the voices in her head. For instance, I have read everything and made some notes and summaries on my sources, and still, when I sit down, I feel like “pulling teeth” (Lamott 22) because I cannot zip the noisy mouths in my head, criticizing me every step of the way. Black knows the power play involved in teacher-student conversations, which I feel is there inside my head when I write my first draft. Black seems to know how I feel while writing my first draft: “Say the ‘wrong thing,’ and there is nowhere to hide” (41). Not that my teachers make me feel this way, but I make myself feel it because of over self-consciousness on my first draft. These voices take a long time to be hushed up, until it is time to merge different texts. Another cause of my first draft jitters is my difficulty in integrating different sources. One of the main causes could be that I forget that these texts are not always factual, but have authors who have claims that can be analyzed and challenged. When I write about what I just read, for example, I feel the need to defer to the authority of the text, so afraid to hear my own voice challenging the experts in the field. Penrose and Geisler remind me, however, that “texts are authored” (508). These authors only offer “a set of alternative positions” (Penrose and Geisler 508), not perfect truths. If I can see texts this way, I can be more at ease in analyzing them in ways that will help me evaluate and integrate them with other texts. In addition, I need to know how to analyze the claims, so that I can incorporate them into my essay. Penrose and Geisler talk about analyzing the claims and dividing them into parts and think of the “validity” of these parts (509-510). They help me see these claims in their components, so I can focus on each part, how they are valid, and then how contribute to the whole. These are some steps that can help reduce my drafting anxieties. Apart from integrating sources, I also have drafting jitters because of hyper-awareness of my writing weaknesses. I get conscious of my choice of words, flow of thoughts, and punctuation. Lamott’s character, William Burroughs, is in my head, telling me that I am as “bold and articulate as a houseplant” (26). When I hear this voice, I get disappointed that I am using boring or awkward words. Being too conscious of my grammar and vocabulary increases my writing anxiety and delays my writing altogether. Then, I also sometimes experience a crazy flow of thoughts that I cannot control. I start with one point, and go to a new point, sometimes within one sentence. For example, I feel like I am lost in my own mind, not knowing which text supports what point. Murray reassures students that they also have to have faith in their writing: “It is a matter of faith, faith that my students have something to say and a language in which to say it” (16). I have to improve my confidence in myself that I have something important to say, and that I have language as a strong tool to help me express it. Moreover, I get concerned more of my punctuation than my writing goals. In writing my first draft, I stop to think if I am using the right punctuation. For me, punctuation is part of grammar, and I do not have perfect grammar. As a result, I spend a long time checking my punctuation, wondering if they are in the right place or must be even there at all. Dawkins, however, informs readers that punctuation can be used for rhetorical effect. I know he is right because punctuation for rhetoric is more evident in poetry, where writers “punctuate according to their intended meaning, their intended emphasis” (Dawkins 534). But punctuation for emphasis and other rhetorical effect is not limited only to poetry. Still, it is hard to punctuate for meaningful purposes if teachers mark first drafts and turn in red marks on punctuation, I have to beg to differ with Dawkins. Sommers knows about the impact of teachers’ comments on students’ writing: “Instead of offering strategies, the teachers offer what is interpreted by students as rules for composing; the comments suggest to students that writing is just a matter of following the rules” (153). These rules have become my priority too, which I now realize is one of the hindrances to good writing. Because of these writing difficulties, I need help through feedbacks that can improve my writing process, especially the revision process. Sommers talks about the problem of teachers’ comments that can lead to students being confused of what they should prioritize, or even worse, losing their own voice and failing to help them see their essays as work in progress that needed, not editing and proofreading, but revising. She notes that some comments can distract students from their writing goals, wherein because of the comments, “students concentrate more, as [she has] noted, on what the teachers commanded them to do than on what they are trying to say” (151). I have experienced the same problem when one of my tutors evaluated my draft and she provided conflicting messages. On the one hand, she said the paragraph was too wordy and needed to be more precise. On the other hand, she asked me to expand the paragraph to include more details about my thoughts, feelings, and analysis. The effect of the comments on me is confusion and frustration. I need something clear that would help me improve my thinking and writing process on my first draft. Murray provides an astounding insight on teaching without teaching redundantly by teaching them about the process of writing. He realizes that the less he focuses on details, the more students learn and the more they write better because he emphasizes the importance of the “writing process,” so that they can write something “worth reading” (16). He agrees with Sommers that teachers should not be hindrances to their students in any way. Instead, they should help them improve their processes of writing and not to “interfere” with it by telling them something they know. Revising is a facilitation process for me, where the authority comes from my writing goals. With the help of feedback from teachers and peers, I can revise and improve the quality of my points and engaging value of my writing. I am the kind of student writer that gets excited with the materials, like reading them is being on the peak of a roller coaster ride, but then I plunge down the moment I start writing my first draft. I realize my drafting jitters come from my writing anxiety for the rules I have to follow to the dot and the inability to merge voices in texts because of inferiority as a reader and writer. These authors that I have read, however, all of them enlightened me of the reality behind writing. Writing is never easy and downright pleasant. It takes hard work, including beginning with a “shitty first draft.” These drafts matter, however, because they start the writing ball rolling, until I come to a final stop, the final draft- the product of hard work, feedback, and revision, the final draft that is finally worth reading and sharing to all. Works Cited Black, Laurel Johnson. “Power and Talk.”Between Talk and Teaching: Reconsidering the Writing Conference. By Black. Utah: Utah UP, 1998. 39-60. Print. Dawkins, John. “Teaching Punctuation as a Rhetorical Tool.” College Composition and Communication 46.4 (1995): 533-548. Print. Lamott, Anne. “Shitty First Drafts.” 21-27. Print. Murray, Donald M. “The Listening Eye: Reflections on the Writing Conference.” College English 41.1 (1979): 13-18. Print. Penrose, Ann M., and Cheryl Geisler. “Reading and Writing without Authority.” College Composition and Communication 45.4 (1994): 505-520. Print. Sommers, Nancy. “Responding to Student Writing.” College Composition and Communication 33.22 (1982): 148-156. Print. Read More