My Writing Process
I have my new set of headphones on, a nice pair of Sennheiser's I got for my birthday, and I'm listening to The Flaming Lips At War with the Mystics (thanks Stewart!) which is an album that makes the headphones dance. Man, I love The Lips.
I'm in prewriting (invention) mode, and the music is keeping me from getting too bogged down with thought. My task is to synthesize three disparate pieces into a coherent themematic essay that explores the question: What must a writing teacher know?
My invention process, which is steadily evolving, involves writing in my journal, freewriting mostly, to see what I know and what interests me about the pieces I've read. It involves hitting the topic from multiple angles. I freewrite in my journal because I have to use my pen. I freewrite on the computer because that employs my typing fingers, another route all together. I have my headphones on in this phase because, like I've stated, I don't want to get bogged down, I just want the ideas to flow without getting stuck on any single idea, just let them do their dance, using me as a conduit, or to carry on that metaphor, a dance floor. Sometimes we have to get out of the way of our minds and let them party.
I'll read some critical articles soon and see what new ideas, new perspective, they shed on the reading. I'll have a pencil in hand and a notebook on my desk. Using my pencil, I'll underline passages that I like in the text, and the ideas that particularly connect to the direction I'm steering this theme I'll jot down in my notebook. If I do that, what I think of as active reading, I'm much more likely to remember the ideas I've encountered, and they are more likely to appear in my essay, either explicitly or implicitly. Explicitly as in I will parphrase or quote them, implicitly as a kind of knowledgable underpinning about the discourse.
At some point I will burn through a first draft. I won't worry about documentation style, nor will I edit myself as I write. I will pretty much freewrite that draft, spill my ideas onto the page willy nilly. This thematic essay is supposed to be 3-4 pages in length, so hopefully my first draft will yeild at least double that, about 6-8 pages. I'll print this draft and read it to get a sense of what I'm saying, then I'll try to ferret out the "center of gravity" as Elbow calls it, which you may know as the thesis statement. What is the central idea I'm expressing? Hopefully I'll find something that makes the essay stick together, something I can rally around.
Next I will organize my ideas around that center of gravity. Maybe I'll do an outline, maybe not. I will cut it mercilessly. Cut it down to the barest essentials, the spine, the barebones of the piece, and I will throw the rest in the trash can. From there, I'll address the specific concerns that have cropped up through the process to that point. I'll add here, find a relevant quotation there that accentuated the thought. I'll work on the introduction, make sure my thesis is clear, make sure my ideas are developed well, and try to get to a decent draft that is a step closer to the one I'll turn in.
I'll set the piece aside for a while, maybe even sleep on it, and hit it again in the morning. Usually a fresh set of eyes will see things I've missed, and I'll get back into the text and work those out. Hopefully at that point the draft will be about ready to submit.
The last thing I will do is edit. I'll proofread, correct my mistakes in grammar and mechanics, make sure all my verb tense lines up consistently (I'm very good at shifting verb tense while I write) and then I'll pass the piece on to a reader, who will undoubtedly uncover mistakes that I've missed. I'll correct those. I will do the Works Cited page and make sure all of my citations are where they should be and formatted correctly according to the documentation style I've chosen, in this case APA format.
I'll reach a point at which I can't do anything else to the draft and I have to let go, give it up to the teacher, hoping he will like what I've written and that the grading gods will guide him to give me an A.
I'm in prewriting (invention) mode, and the music is keeping me from getting too bogged down with thought. My task is to synthesize three disparate pieces into a coherent themematic essay that explores the question: What must a writing teacher know?
My invention process, which is steadily evolving, involves writing in my journal, freewriting mostly, to see what I know and what interests me about the pieces I've read. It involves hitting the topic from multiple angles. I freewrite in my journal because I have to use my pen. I freewrite on the computer because that employs my typing fingers, another route all together. I have my headphones on in this phase because, like I've stated, I don't want to get bogged down, I just want the ideas to flow without getting stuck on any single idea, just let them do their dance, using me as a conduit, or to carry on that metaphor, a dance floor. Sometimes we have to get out of the way of our minds and let them party.
I'll read some critical articles soon and see what new ideas, new perspective, they shed on the reading. I'll have a pencil in hand and a notebook on my desk. Using my pencil, I'll underline passages that I like in the text, and the ideas that particularly connect to the direction I'm steering this theme I'll jot down in my notebook. If I do that, what I think of as active reading, I'm much more likely to remember the ideas I've encountered, and they are more likely to appear in my essay, either explicitly or implicitly. Explicitly as in I will parphrase or quote them, implicitly as a kind of knowledgable underpinning about the discourse.
At some point I will burn through a first draft. I won't worry about documentation style, nor will I edit myself as I write. I will pretty much freewrite that draft, spill my ideas onto the page willy nilly. This thematic essay is supposed to be 3-4 pages in length, so hopefully my first draft will yeild at least double that, about 6-8 pages. I'll print this draft and read it to get a sense of what I'm saying, then I'll try to ferret out the "center of gravity" as Elbow calls it, which you may know as the thesis statement. What is the central idea I'm expressing? Hopefully I'll find something that makes the essay stick together, something I can rally around.
Next I will organize my ideas around that center of gravity. Maybe I'll do an outline, maybe not. I will cut it mercilessly. Cut it down to the barest essentials, the spine, the barebones of the piece, and I will throw the rest in the trash can. From there, I'll address the specific concerns that have cropped up through the process to that point. I'll add here, find a relevant quotation there that accentuated the thought. I'll work on the introduction, make sure my thesis is clear, make sure my ideas are developed well, and try to get to a decent draft that is a step closer to the one I'll turn in.
I'll set the piece aside for a while, maybe even sleep on it, and hit it again in the morning. Usually a fresh set of eyes will see things I've missed, and I'll get back into the text and work those out. Hopefully at that point the draft will be about ready to submit.
The last thing I will do is edit. I'll proofread, correct my mistakes in grammar and mechanics, make sure all my verb tense lines up consistently (I'm very good at shifting verb tense while I write) and then I'll pass the piece on to a reader, who will undoubtedly uncover mistakes that I've missed. I'll correct those. I will do the Works Cited page and make sure all of my citations are where they should be and formatted correctly according to the documentation style I've chosen, in this case APA format.
I'll reach a point at which I can't do anything else to the draft and I have to let go, give it up to the teacher, hoping he will like what I've written and that the grading gods will guide him to give me an A.
posted by Jason M. Wester at 7:16 AM
1 Comments:
Excellent writing, You are a inspirational teacher,you make people want to learn more and dig deeper, and write better.
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