Jamye's+Research+Reflection

As I read about the evolution of the process model, I was reminded of the way I was taught in school. I'm very familiar with the prewrite, rough draft and final copy idea. Not only is that how I was taught, but it's my first instinct when it comes to instruction. With all of the writing classes I've taken with peer critiques, reconstructing revisions and free writes, I still think of students writing papers as an outline, a rough draft and a final copy (really just the rough draft minus the grammatical errors). It's really absurd to think about. That is certainly not at all the way I write a paper, much less a creative piece. As composition teachers, we have to teach the writing process as we know it, use it and understand it. We also have to include other techniques and practices that don't work for us, just in case they work for our students. It's crazy to me to think about writing out a full outline before starting a story, although I know there are writers that compose that way. I tend to start with characters and find out where they're going as I get to know them, often throwing a few characters in a given place and free writing their interactions until I find the story. I also may revert back to this free write to figure out why something isn't working, or to get to know my characters better. It's not that different than spending more time with a friend so you can get to know her better. By modeling this process for my students, they can see how much writing I do before I even really start writing my story, and how much I do throughout the process that never makes the cut. They can also find out if this process works for them, or if they are the outline type. I think reading about the different attempts to study the effects of process writing showed me how varied we all are in our writing process, and how important it is to introduce our students to a variety of processes. I also found it interesting to see how the view of revision has changed over the years. When I assigned a rough draft for my first writing assignments, my poor students looked so upset when we did peer editing and a students wrote all over their handwritten pages. I got asked countless times, "You mean I have to rewrite the whole thing?" Having done such extensive revision in my college classes, I had forgotten this view of revision. Just the idea of rewriting their draft verbatim minus the grammatical errors caught by their peers seemed like a daunting task. When I stopped the editing to explain my expectations of revision, they looked scared to death. I had to explain that revision is hard. A first draft may be 10 revisions away from complete. Once they understood the purpose of true revision, even if it meant cutting out chunks and rearranging the paragraphs to make a better story, they became better editors. Some turned in much better stories than those first drafts. I find that the developmental aspects of teaching the writing process are invaluable. By exposing our students to a variety of processes, we are giving them the skills to become better writers, better readers, and better thinkers.