The Importance of Drafting

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 before it was due. From there it was a race against the clock, and I was losing. I didn’t have the luxury of taking a step back from my writing and coming at it with fresh eyes. I turned it in at 11:58pm. When it was graded and passed back, I looked over it again and was appalled. It was a rough draft at best; my ideas were scattered throughout, strung together by bits of biographical information that I didn’t strongly connect to anything, with a few grammatical mistakes to top it all off. Looking at it from a distance I saw many ways in which it could have been improved, and I reprimanded myself for not writing with enough time to have seen and fixed those problems.
But have I changed my ways? Yes and No.

Is drafting really that important? What did I miss out on by not drafting/moving past the drafting stage? Well, continuity and idea development, for one. I had never written out all of the research that I had done about the topic, so a lot of it didn’t end up being incorporated. This meant that a lot of my ideas were disconnected or didn’t have evidence to support them. Writing everything out and then weaving the details together into an essay would have helped with a lot of these problems. John McPhee, in his book Draft No. 4, talks about how he wrote down all of the stories, interviews, and research he had done for a project on 36 3-by-5 index cards. First, he found the two that needed to go side-by-side, and then he arranged the other 34 around those two. After that, he found that he didn't need to rearrange anything as he wrote. This kind of organizational drafting helps the writer control all of the moving parts of a narrative, and know them from beginning to end.  

For a kid-friendly approach, check out Sugar Crime Scene

A draft can allow you to make changes in organization, develop ideas, and stay on topic throughout the writing process before the changes become harder to make.

Drafting can also represent a commitment to your work. Sometimes the only way to curb your procrastination routine is to start drafting. For me, this starts with opening a Word document and setting up the header of what will become my final essay. Once the document is open, I don’t close it until it’s finished, because the additional tabs on my computer and icons on my toolbar act as a constant reminder of what needs to be done. From there I just need to write, however it comes and whatever becomes of it, my biggest struggle becomes putting words on a page.
My current philosophy: "Always return before you want to." (Jeff Anderson)

As a teacher and a writer I'm learning to face my fear of being imperfect, or making mistakes, and running out of time to fix them. But I can't be paralyzed by fear because doing nothing is worse than finishing something and then addressing its imperfections and moving forward. “It's not going to be perfect. It's not supposed to be perfect. Give yourself the gift of finishing” (Anderson). 

Finishing a draft is great, but it can't remain a draft. It must be revised. Good revision requires you to get a little distance from your work, either by enlisting friends and family to read through it, or by setting it aside for a day (or two!) and coming at it from a reader’s perspective. It takes time, something that always seems in short supply in the classroom, but the outcomes are worth every minute when structured effectively.
Even if we know that drafting is important, we as writers might not have the easiest time of doing it, and as teachers we have a hard time getting our students to do it. So how do we make students realize that drafting is a friendly tool for writers of all ages? My plan is imperfect now, but I'm using whatever tools I can to make it better (and get it done before the deadline).