Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Reflecting on your writing process
Now that you’ve completed your first formal assignment for this class, I’d like you to reflect on your writing and revision process. How did your essay evolve from its initial draft to your final submission? What feedback from your peers did you find helpful and respond to? What writing exercises or class discussion helped you think about this assignment differently? As you revised, what specific changes did you make to this piece? Ultimately, what did you learn from this assignment about yourself, writing for a specific audience, or your attitudes about education?
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ReplyDeleteWhen I got the assignment, I was actually very excited. I had a lot of strong opinions about the debate on “stress and the high school student,” and I was excited to get all my ideas down on paper. The only problem was that instead of organizing my ideas before writing, I just started writing about anything and everything that popped into my head. My reasoning was that I could then go back and cut down if I had too much information. But I never formed a clear thesis statement, so my paper had no direction. My peer readers agreed that I had good arguments, but none of it tied back to a central theme or idea.
ReplyDeleteSo then I packed up my things and went to my favorite coffee shop to really organize this essay. With my hot chocolate in hand, I picked a central argument and created a thesis statement. Sadly, I had to rewrite all of my body paragraphs to make them connect back to my thesis. The good part was that I did not have to cut out many of my ideas; I just had to add onto the ideas with support to the thesis.
My peer readers really helped me create a central argument that would help tie all of my different ideas together. They also suggested that I add in some statistics for evidence, and I think that that really added legitimacy to my argument.
When I got the assignment sheet, I really did not know what topic I wanted to write about. Quickly from not knowing what to write about, I suddenly had too many things to write about as ideas began to pop into my head after class discussion. From there, I just began to write; I didn’t really know what direction I was going in. I was hoping to find some sort of focus during a beginning free writing stage. I really found focus when I thought about a specific audience. I began to think about writing to my best friend Alston who is in the midst of the college application process. I thought about what I would want to say to her and how I would say it. This really helped me and I learned that thinking of a very specific audience (even a specific person) can help to focus a piece. The review process went really well. My group gave me good suggestions on how to make my piece stronger. Specifically, I added more personal experience stories and extended my introduction paragraph so that every paragraph related back to the introduction. Also, I really liked being able to get started on a piece of writing and be able to put it down for a few days, then pick it up again later. This allowed me reread the essay with a clear mind, and fresh ideas.
ReplyDeleteMy first draft of the paper on high-school stress was short and vague because I didn’t really know what angle I was going to approach the topic with. I could have pretending to have some strong feelings about how high school was simply too stressful and agreed with the debaters. I decided instead to speak my mind and write a paper disagreeing with the topic as a whole. The process was slightly confusing because I couldn’t really do the paper as we talked about it in class because my whole approach was completely different. In the end I’m happy with my essay, my only worry is that it may stray too far from the topics discussed in class, but I do feel that I took the articles provided and used my rhetoric to disprove their claims.
ReplyDeleteThe writing and revision process went very smoothly for me thanks in part to my solid rough draft and insightful tips from my peer reviewers. This paper came together naturally because the blog posts definitely built up nicely to the final paper. I spent a lot of time on the first draft so my peer reviewers saw my best work. Then, they gave it a second and third pair of eyes to find things that could be improved. Specifically, they recommended some changes in syntax, some expansion on certain points and helped me make my thesis stronger and more concise. Upon implementing their suggestions, I felt my paper became more solid. In terms of what I learned while doing the research for the paper– not a lot because my senior thesis in high school was on a similar topic. Nonetheless, I think stress in adolescents is always a topic worth discussing.
ReplyDeleteI think my paper evolved a lot from its initial draft in that I provided more examples to strengthen my argument and state my claim more clearly. I thought our peer review in class was helpful as I think discussion is an important component in improving one’s writing. As I revised my paper, I found myself considering the advice other students gave and incorporating their suggestions into my writing. I also found that in editing other peoples papers, I actually wound up following my own advise to others in my paper. Ultimately, I learned that peer editing can help further your writing.
ReplyDeleteThroughout this first assignment I found that the peer review process was very helpful. The support and advice that I got from my group helped to narrow my argument. I tried to challenge a different side of the debate than most students. I tried to appeal more to the parents, who were my intended audience throughout my revision process. I think that I could work on appealing more strongly to ethos, logos, and pathos. Although I understand the pressures that high school students are under I feel like there are other issues that need to be addressed that will affect them for the rest of their lives.
ReplyDeleteMy essay completely evolved from my first draft. At the last minute, unfortunately, I decided I didn’t like where my essay was going and started over completely. Although I am much happier with the direction I took my writing the second time, it was frustrating to lose so much writing time. The feedback from my peers helped me to brainstorm ideas and thus develop my thoughts further, which I definitely appreciated. Both the Denver Post and the New York Times articles helped me tremendously in understanding the topic, and developing kairos in my paper. I referred to both sources in my essay.
ReplyDeleteUltimately I learned to go with my gut, even if it means starting over. Perhaps in the future, I will brainstorm written ideas of ALL of my options before starting my rough draft. Even then, maybe I will begin several rough drafts to help me narrow down my focus. I also learned a lot about the topic of education. This is something that I had never really formed an opinion about prior; I simply went through the motions of the system. I enjoyed the opportunity to form an opinion and use rhetor in my writing. I look forward to improving my writing and revision process for future essays.
My first draft did not seem to have much focus. I had a good idea but, I didn’t really take a stand on what I was presenting on. My essay is however a little different because you could say I took the standpoint of the skeptic in the sense, is one type of school better than another. So throughout my paper I am showing the pros and cons of the different school types. I choose this manner because I attended both public and boarding school so in my opinion the only type of schooling I haven’t personally experienced is being home schooled. My peer reviewers helped me establish a direction and more focus on my paper. They said that I should take a stand and say which type of schooling I thought was the best and how it managed to eliminate or at least lessen the amount of stress on a typical high school student. I focused more on the stresses of that immediate time in someone’s life and the potential adverse effects of these stresses that can occur in the future. I learned from this assignment that rhetoric writing does not serve its purpose if you do not take a stand and try to convince your audience. So the stand I took was one of enlightenment to people for the differences in the type of schooling and the types of stress you can encounter in each. My audience was also my brother and where he will place his child once he is born, so the audience of parents to be.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first read the assignment I instantly felt anxiety and excitement. I don’t remember the last time I turned in a writing paper to be grading for the writing. My initial reaction of anxiety quickly turned into excitement because I started to think about the various arguments to be made and how I can pull some of my own experiences into the assignment. At first, I had a general idea of topics but wasn’t sure how to connect the topic of stress to the argument. It was only after the peer review process that I realized how to make this connection. Reading my original thoughts and talking with my group allowed me to organized ideas that would make for a compelling read. After the review, I was able to restructure my thoughts to fit more specifically with my new ideas.
ReplyDeleteI was pretty engaged when looking for research to support my correlations and arguments because I think psychology is interesting, which kept me engaged in writing my paper. I have always found it hard to conclude a paper and have never felt comfortable when getting to the end. I also seem to struggle with what needs precise closure and what should be left to the reader. I don’t want to explain everything to the highest degree, makes for a long paper and I don’t want to leave them most important things open. I don’t know, maybe it’s a mental thing.
The essay took shape after we completed the peer review. I already had a basic direction in where I wanted to go to in my paper, but the peer review helped me refine my topic and made sure that I kept on my topic. The draft was relatively unchanged, but the pages that were added were focused on one particular issue versus accidentally wandering off from topic. If I did not participate in the review, I think I would have turned my topic into something that wasn’t necessarily high school students and stress but more into reformation and looking at the structure of the school district.
ReplyDeleteFrom this assignment, I learned that I need to take time to focus on one topic and not just rush through a paper. I also learned that I can easily use research and that it wasn’t a problem to use resources to back up my points. I would think that if would have been more difficult if this was only an opinion piece with no backing evidence. I still think that I write in a general tone to a general audience, even though I tried to make my paper sound professional and more tailored.
For the next assignment, I think I need to focus more on learning to write to a specific audience and addressing the audience more clearly. If I am able to accomplish this, I think that my writing will become stronger and much easier to understand and relate to.
When beginning this assignment, I got stuck on what to write. So then I scheduled an appointment with the writing center as was off to a great start. After meeting with the writing center consultant, I was able to knock out my initial draft with ease. I had written three pages already, as was thinking it was going to be a piece of cake to finish the last two. Finishing those last two pages was no problem, it was when it came time to edit that I ran into some issues.
ReplyDeleteI began having issues when I got stuck on how to edit my paper. I thought it sounded great, so I realized I needed someone else’s opinion. That is when I turned to another visit from my old trusty friend, the writing center. The consultant said the paper was great, but part of it was very confusing. I was trying to write to freshman, but the points and arguments I brought up weren’t speaking towards them. Also, I made some great arguments but I had no support to back them up. So therefore, last night I changed my audience, supported my arguments and changed some grammatical errors. After editing my paper I found I learned a lot from that process. I learned how to edit on my own and learned that it is ok to re-do my paper. I believe through this process I have grown as a writer and my writing has grown.
When starting this paper, I had no clue where to begin. I have had personal experience with dealing with stress in high school, but I wasn’t sure how to create a believable and influential argument with a personal experience. While going over the resources available for this paper, I found myself stuck again on what to use and how more opinions would benefit this paper. When using facts I like to use facts, but the hard part about this paper was that there was little solid evidence. The majority of the textual evidence is opinion and responses to articles or videos that have been created to inform audiences about this problem.
ReplyDeleteWhen I thought about my personal experiences, I had to think about who might actually care about these experiences. This was when I thought of my high school principal. At first I began writing my paper as if I was proposing a plan that would help her school and students prosper and learn efficiently. When Eloy read my paper, he suggested that a thank you letter might be a better way to incorporate these problems. This was the way that I ended up writing. I started off by thanking my high school principal for the efforts she put in and in trying to assist her in creating a positive environment for her students, I explained my many observations about high school stress that I had obtained while attending Maple Grove Senior High.
This paper was not an easy one for me to write. Though I thought it would be when I began, I had many roadblocks that caused me trouble. By pushing through these troubles, I learned how to think differently and work around my problems. When reading through my final draft I looked for sentences that didn’t make much sense and could be arranged differently to more effectively get my point across.
The thing I found most helpful from my peers was when they would point out statements that were not very clear. I tend to wake up early and do my homework rather than stay up late, and sometimes the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet, so my papers are sometimes a step below coherent. By pointing out those statements, my peer reviewers helped me cut out pointless words and awkward statements. On top of that, my peer reviewers helped me narrow down my statements. I tend to write with a lot of different concepts and arguments combined into one paper, which is one of the many reasons why I tend to go over the page limit; they all get connected at the very end. My reviewers enabled me to limit my ideas and arguments so that my concentration was much more narrow and concise. I also learned that it is very difficult for me to write to a specific audience. For the past three and a half years, I have written for one audience: college professors. Generally my papers have an argumentative tone but are for the most part, informative in nature. Writing to a superintendent or parents is difficult because I am not always sure about what information to include and how to phrase certain statements whereas with professors I have to prove that I know something, I have an opinion about the topic and that I can sound fairly intelligent while providing information and stating my position.
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