In All that I Do and Say

We have all seen students who print out two copies of their paper, mark one up, and turn in their “draft and final copy” for a grade. To understand more about drafting at work in schools, I asked teachers and students from Hyde Park Middle School some basic questions about drafting and revision. 65% of the students admitted that when they weren't required to turn in a draft with their final essay, they didn't do one. Many of the teachers who responded said t hat's why they assign them. As I'll discuss later , there are many different ways that writers draft, and it's likely that those students do draft to a certain extent, but getting them to consciously develop and use goo d drafting and revision strategies is a battle all its own.  Peer review days for me as a student were always a toss-up, because I’d  either   get put with someone who would tear my paper to shreds (very rare) or barely read through it and say, “that's good” and then be silent for the rest...

Sometimes the lines between drafts can be a little fuzzy, but often there are still stages dictated by time, level of writing/editing, and completeness. I recently wrote a paper for my American Literature class that had very distinct  stages of  drafting. The first draft was preceded by a search for sources, which really solidified my topic and the direction I wanted to go with this information. I found a news broadcast and split my screen so I could watch it and make notes on a word document at the same time. These notes were bullet points with topics and time stamps so I could find a section again later, unstructured paragraphs where I word-vomited about something from the video that I could connect to the book, and comments about things to look for as I watched. I got about halfway and had to stop, but came back later and finished in a similar fashion. Right after finishing the video, I went back through what I’d written and started dragging bullet points and sentences aro...

             Drafting can be a bare-boned skeleton, waiting to get dressed/fleshed up. Drafting can be a branch of a tree, whittled down to a match stick. Some people write a lot, and edit down. Others write the bare essentials and beef it up. Drafts can be ugly and messy and flawed, because we know that’s not going to be it’s final form. Is this what we're reminding students (and ourselves)? Here's some feedback about drafting from the teachers of Hyde Park MS: "Drafting... helps to get your ideas down without the stress of it needing to be perfect.” "Drafting during the writing process allows a writer to plan out their writing...it is the blueprint for the final copy." "[Drafting organizes] one's thoughts/ideas." "It’s Only A Rough Draft" 1 Simple Thing           When we think of drafting and revision, we might picture something like this. In reality, writer's don't usually make all those changes in ink, but our do...

Many of the articles I've read in preparation for writing on this topic have already embraced the teacher-as-writer concept. It's an identity that I'm still coming to terms with. I guess sharing is a start. Invisible Bread Like all of my bad writing stories, this one starts with procrastination. This came in the form of research, talking with my classmates about what to write, doing other homework, watching Netflix, and spending hours in the library, all without writing more than 100 words. The assignment was to write 6-8 pages about a work of poetry and argue whether or not the poet’s life had a significant influence, or something like that, due at midnight. I chose John Keats. I remember spending several hours between classes the week before it was due sitting in front of the shelves in the library that had Keats’ biographies and collected works. I checked several out and put sticky notes on useful passages. I don’t think I opened a Word document until the day befor...