This is always the point
in the semester when I curse my decision to teach writing – and especially to
teach the writing process. I don’t so much teach the writing process as a
lesson, but as an experience and that is the problem. For all of our lofty classroom
conversations about ideas, audience, and structure and all the brainstorming,
journaling and reflection we do, there always comes that moment of truth when
students submit a draft of their paper or project to the class workshop. And now, I am forced, against my will, to
give them advice that hopefully will make their next draft better. It is a lot
of work. It is time consuming. It is life draining. What is especially depressing
is that for all the hours I spend passing along this advice only a fraction of the
advice will be taken and often that fraction will consist almost exclusively of
surface errors and easy fixes (“reword this sentence” will be acted on while
“rethink your organization” will be ignored).
Why are students so
resistant to drafting?
Of course, not all of them
are. This is also the point in the semester when I receive a lot of feedback
about my successes and failures as a teacher in the form of both anonymous
class evaluations and through students’ final reflections about what they have
learned and how they have grown. In both of these, students’ reactions to this
process of learning to draft and revise tend to the extreme, if opposite, ends
of the spectrum.
Some students continue to
resist and protest against “meaningless work” and “writing the same paper over
and over” while others celebrate breaking the habit of “writing the night
before an assignment is due” and “learning to be a writer.” I am thrilled to
read that some students “finally understand what it means to be a writer” and
are confident that they are “on their way.” But then there are the others…
They do not want to think
about their writing and do not want to invest anything (certainly not much time
let alone blood, sweat, or tears) in their writing. They have been taught a
formula to write during their K-12 education and do not understand why I can’t
give them a simple formula for college writing as well. Or worse, they have
mastered that K-12 formula which has served them well on standardized tests (which is, after all, why so much K-12 writing focuses on this formula) and
so when I question that formula or fail to grade a formulaic essay with anything
less than an “A” then it is because I am a #@$%&.
I love drafting. Learning
about drafting changed my life (and not just my writing life – it made me a
writer which made my professional life possible). Even now, warning nerd
sighting ahead, just the simple act of reading the definitions for draft
supplied by Merriam-Webster makes me smile. The first definition “the act of
drawing a net” is actually a wonderful description of the way I begin writing.
My first drafts almost always involve casting a wide net as I long ago mastered
the art of the “Shitty First Draft” advocated by Anne
Lamott. I could actually write a whole blog post just about the definitions
of draft and maybe I will on another day, but the point is that I am an
enthusiastic drafter and sell it with evangelic zeal as well as build it into
the structure of all my classes, but not all my students are buying.
I think some of the
problem is that until you have really seen what a difference it makes in your
writing then drafting just seems like a lot of unnecessary work – and even more work if you are involved in a workshop or feedback loop of some kind. This is when I try to explain to my students that
drafting may appear to be more work, but it really isn’t because drafting is
actually a lot more efficient and productive work. In racing, cycling and
motorsports, drafting
or slipstreaming is well-known to reduce the expenditure of energy and I
believe there is a similar effect involved in writing drafts. Unfortunately, no photographers have captured cool visuals to demonstrate this effect.
Paula Krebs writes in “Next Time,
Fail Better” that humanities students need to learn how to learn from
failure, but I believe this is something we can all learn to do better. How can
I teach my students to think about failure in a more positive way? How can I
teach my students to learn from their mistakes? How can I teach them to
understand that some failure is expected along the way? How can I teach them
that there is not only no such thing as the perfect first draft but typically
the final draft is far from perfect as well. I don’t know yet, but I have some
ideas I want to try. As Krebs also writes, teaching is all about learning from
failure. Every semester is a fresh draft of classes and lessons we have taught
before as well as some shitty first drafts. I know that I am far from that
finished, polished product (or teacher) I dream of becoming. But the good news
is that my next draft is due in only a few weeks.
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