Theory Text Reflections

Nagin:

I can remember the class where we "learned to write." Each week we were given a tive-hundred-word writing assignment. We wrote a variety of papers: narrative, descriptive, contrast- and-compare, and persuasive essays, to name a few. We would receive the assignment on Monday, with little discussion of what was expected. Sometimes we were given a few minutes to begin our papers, then we spent the rest of the week hearing about different types of sentences and paragraph unity. We never really applied those ideas to papers in class, but the teacher assumed we would use those skills correctly in our work. We did learn the "formula" for exposition: a three-part thesis with an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a con- clusion. . . . The following Monday, she returned our papers with red marks and a grade on the last page. If we had over a certain number of red marks, we were required to recopy the incorrect sentences or misspelled words ten times.4  (Nagin, 31).

This passage struck me with its familiarity to how I was instructed to write. I remember with some degree of phantom pain like an old sports injury swelling up the process of the "essay a week" mentality as a student. What I am suddenly nervous about is the fact that I have spent the past two years with the "essay a week" model crucial to Freshman curriculum. Yet where I hope I am different is that the process involved incorporation of new ideas into each draft. For example:

Week one: Having a formal, explicit thesis statement
Week two: Providing relevant textual evidence
Week three: Removing the first and second person (NOTE: Not for the faint of heart. This is the equivalent of Custer writing, "Day Three: Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse). 

I'm currently questioning whether this type of repetitive writing should be entirely stricken from student writing. While students may dislike this process as it is by no means an enjoyable process, I can't shake that there can be value to frequent (even nightly) writing assignments. However, my take away from Nagin is that all writing must have a purpose and specific focus and this is what teachers should consider when students craft essays. 

Hayes and Flower:

Pre-Writing" is the stage before words emerge on paper; "Writ- ing" is the stage in which a product is being produced; and "Re-Writing" is a final reworking of that product. Yet both common sense and research tell us that writers are constantly planning (pre-writing) and revising (re-writing) as they compose (write), not in clean-cut ~tagesF.~urthermore, the sharp dis- tinctions stage models make between the operations of planning, writing, and revising may seriously distort how these activities work. For example, Nancy Sommers has shown that revision, as it is carried out by skilled writers, is not an end-of-the-line repair process, but is a constant process of "re-vision" or re-seeing that goes on while they are comp~singA.~more accurate model of the composing process would need to recognize those basic thinking pro- cesses which unite planning and revision. Because stage models take the final product as their reference point, they offer an inadequate account of the more intimate, moment-by-moment intellectual process of composing. How, for example, is the output of one stage, such as pre-writing or incubation, transferred to the next? As every writer knows, having good ideas doesn't automatically produce good prose. Such models are typically silent on the inner processes of decision and choice. 

I admit to being a hypocrite. When I was in high school, I willfully battled in every English class against pre-writing. My relationship with the process was so antipathetic with pre-writing that for my AP Language editorial senior year, I wrote a four page argumentative piece for the school newspaper that pre-writing should not be part of overall essay grades largely along similar lines as the authors argue here. I never needed to pre-write for my essays. Since it was required as part of the overall grade, I largely faked my outlines and organizers based on what was already in the essay.

Yet here I am almost 10 years later forcing (pardon my French) this bullshit on my students. Don't get me wrong. There are students who need to complete graphic organizers before they can put so much as their name on a paper. Yet I am now curious as to how rigid my process has been. Should students be taught the formulas that Hayes and Flower tend to discourage or should a more fluid process be implemented.

It isn't the first time I have fought this internal battle and I have tried it both ways. Students have had the choice of writing without outlines and prewriting or with it. Yet I do not trust my students to actually do the things that the authors suggest without some sort of structure and reinforcement. Students need the red pen to circle their grammar mistakes to prevent them from skipping the revision component of the writing.

Someone help me. I'm terrified of teaching kids anything but the ways that never worked for me.