Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Reflecting on your writing and revision process
As you turn the final draft of your literacy event narrative in today, please reflect on your writing and revision process. How did your narrative evolve from your first draft to your final submission? What feedback from your peers did you find helpful and respond to? What writing exercises or class discussion helped you think about this assignment differently? As you revised, what specific changes did you make as a writer? Ultimately, what did you learn from this assignment about yourself, your writing, or your beliefs or attitudes about literacy?
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For my first draft, my narrative wasn't finished. I had about 60 percent of it done. When I finished the rest, I used my peers' comments to make subtle changed to my writing. I also corrected my tense mistakes because in the first paragraph, I switched tenses a few times. When we did the DOs and DONTs exercise, I learned how people respond to different writing tactics and how to exploit their responses and make my paper a little better. Upon a second reading, I found a few word mess ups that sounded the same as what I wanted to say, just spelled wrong.
ReplyDeleteI learned a little bit about structure for this piece. Taking ideas from Allison, I used spacers to dictate changes in time, and to start from the end and fill in the beginning. I also stretched the truth a tiny bit as I couldn't remember exactly what had happened during dialogues.
The only way that my narrative changed from the first draft to the final one was that the final one had an ending. Finding a way to conclude a story that wasnt over was somewhat of a challenge and i had to put it off for a while till i was able to come up with something good. The only feedback from my peers that was helpful was with proofreadding. i am not good at catching spelling errors and the girl thats sitting next to me found all that kind of stuff for me. the help session we had at the back of the room helped me the most with this assignment mostly because i was confused about what the naratives had to be about. That talk told me that it could be any kind of literacy and that allowed me to start thinking more outside of the box. I didnt make any changes as a writer and i also didnt learn to much of anything. I just wrote the story.
ReplyDeleteAs I wrote the first draft of my narrative I thought that I didn't need a rough draft or a revision process, I was used to writing a final copy in one sitting. When I got to class and read my paper out loud I found many things in my paper that I wanted to change that I wouldn't have before. In hearing my fellow classmates papers it also showed me different ways that people write and their different styles. This inspired me to make my essay more personalized. They told me that I could work on my conclusion and tying it all together which I tried to do in my final copy. The class discussion about voicing your opinion in your narrative and making the reader feel like they are experiencing it with you helped me think about this assignment differently. Each time I re-read my essay I would revise a chunk to try to make it flow better and so that the imagery could come through better. I learned that writing isn't always as bad as I thought it was through this assignment and also that reading and writing are a big part of my everyday life that have helped shape me into who I am today.
ReplyDeleteWhen revising my final paper, I first of all reread it and kept an open mind as to what should be changed. Of course there were the punctuation and gramatical errors, but I realized I needed more details to evolve the paper into something better. These were the suggestions from the peer review as well. Their suggestions made me see the specific places as to where to include details and tell a story with emotion. I really tried to describe my grandmother in a way that would really convey the meaning of this narrative to me. It also gave the reader a better understanding of who she truly is. This assignment really helped me reflect on writing, rather than just doing it. By taking the time and trying to connect with myself from the past, it allows for real emotion to come out which shows in the writing. This narrative was a new type of writing for me. It opened my views to different types of writing, as opposed to just an analytical essay. To try something new was fun and really helped me put my own voice into my story.
ReplyDeleteOver the course of time that I had to complete the assignment my narrative evolved from a somewhat bland story to something a little more in depth. I was able to use the feedback I received fro my peers in order to add dialogue and also give the reader a deeper sense of my relationship with my father. I thought that the class discussions with regards to creating tension really helped me approach the story with a different approach than I normally would, in the sense that I would not normally think about tension or try to incorporate aspects of it into a narrative. As I revised I attempted to show the reader different aspects of my relationships as oppose to just telling them. I learned that my writing can be used for more abstract work as well as storytelling.
ReplyDeleteThe process of writing this narrative was the most building experience on a particular assignment I have had. The brainstorming activity brought about the first ideas. The first draft was an experiment with the peer revision process giving focus to finally lead into the completion of the piece.
ReplyDeleteBrainstorming was an easy process. I quickly discovered what I wanted to write about. I made an outline and wrote down the pieces I wanted to include in my final draft (Grapes of Wrath-John Steinbeck, Self-Reliance-Emerson, Walden-Thoreau, and The Stranger-Albert Camus). The focus of my paper was on the transformation of my faith and how American literature affected that earliest in my life.
My first draft was “shitty” as described by the article we read for class. It was a narrative in pieces as well as expressed with too much voice. It didn’t flow or make sense but all of my thoughts were down on paper in short form. The revision process, particularly reading others papers, was helpful. From my peers papers, I extrapolated other styles and applied more order to my draft. With specific examples in mind I was able to start a final edit. Because I had so much focus coming into the final draft, my creativity in story writing was free to blossom. Instead of stating facts to get a point across I was able to add figurative language or an image or scene to expand my story. Overall, the process of writing this narrative taught me that I can learn from others, even my peers, and take that inspiration to apply it to my own writing.
The revising process for myself I generally the most difficult part of writing. The in class discussions about our narratives were very beneficial to me in first finding my topic, and then showing me what I can do to make the narrative more real by showing rather than telling. Some of the peer critiques were beneficial. The advice I found most beneficial was to use more quotes in Spanish so that the reader is placed into the same situation as I was and they can really see what I went through. Before this assignment I knew that I liked creative writing better than analytical writing. This assignment did however prove to me that I have more confidence in my writing when it is creative writing and more personal because then I know exactly what I want to say.
ReplyDeleteThe revision process was helpful in terms that it allowed for two new sets of eyes and ears to look over the language and clarity of the essay. I wrote my essay with one flashback within another, so in my mind I understood what was going on, and the purpose of each story, but to someone else it could’ve been hazy. The revision process helped me identify a clearer focus. At certain parts of my essay I just need to be blunt about things, to help make it clearer, so the readers aren’t loss as to which environment they’re in. When I first heard that the essay was four pages about me, I was nervous. But the emphasis on showing not telling in class helped me elaborate on my essay, and just made it went through quickly.
ReplyDeleteI saw that I did the first draft as making a structure, which is trying to tell the story as specific as I can. The difference between the first draft and the final one is that I added the feelings that are recommended by my group members and edited the wrong grammars, the unrelated nonsense and the inappropriate words. I don’t know whether I can edit all the wrong staffs. But I tried to do my best. Anyway, I thought that English is still not my first language. This reason is big enough for me to forgive myself not being as well as others. By the way, I have just realized this attitude when I finished that assignment. Because in the content of that paper, I wrote about the presentation which I did before. I overcome my unconfident by telling myself English is not my first language.
ReplyDeleteAs I began to write my first draft for my narrative, I had the sense that this was not as good as I could have made it. It was something that I was telling about my experience than actually trying to show the audience. The peer review that we did in class was a helpful aspect because our classmates were able to tell us what they thought as a writer and help us improve. Their tips were also very helpful making my final draft something that I thought was good for my type of writing. But while I was in the revising process, it was difficult in trying to incorporate the tips I received from my classmates and making it something that it was my own. And finally what I learned about my writing is that there are many different techniques to this writing process.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first sat down to write the narrative, the words flowed out onto the screen and I continued to pick up momentum. I took a few breaks here and there in developing the first draft, and then continued to go back over and add details as they came to me and rewrite certain paragraphs or sentences. I learned that my skills as a writer can translate into many different facets of writing, and are not strictly limited to analytical essays or speeches, but that I can effectively communicate in many different writing styles. In writing my first draft, my ultimate goal was to get substance on paper that I could work with and condense, then as I continued in writing it, I began to go back through and rewrite to make the entire narrative consistent with my own voice and what I wanted to convey. The encouragement and suggestion from those who proofread my draft was very helpful, and I continued to search for feedback, both on the levels of mere grammatical edits, and on a higher level in regards to actual content.
ReplyDeleteIn writing and revising my narrative, I was able to discover firsthand that writing does not always entail the most eloquent phrases, particularly in a narrative. It involves, more importantly, the ability to maintain a single voice particular to me as a narrator. I have for so long operated under the common disillusion that writing is about crafting elegant and arching rhetoric (which in certain instances, it is), but it revolves more around effective communication, and I learned that substance often trumps style.
I think my narrative turned out pretty well. The first draft ended up being a very good start and all I had to do for the final draft is change the ending and look for grammar corrections. The feedback from my peers after peer revisions was also very helpful. They bumped my self-esteem as a writer by making it clear that it was a good narrative but also suggested that my ending be clearer, which is a very important aspect of a good narrative. The class discussions about Dorothy Allison’s memoir really helped with me this type of assignment. Also the discussions about all the different types of writing made me think that my narrative did not have to go in chronological order, which I think really added to my narrative. As I revised, the specific changes I made as a writer was letting my thought and emotions fall out onto paper. The subject I wrote about is very difficult for me to talk/ write about, so it was a big change for me to write so passionately on the subject and not hold anything back. By writing this paper, I learned that things can be learned from difficult experiences and that it feels really good to write about that particular experience that you never thought you would be able to bring up again. I also learned that my writing is an efficient way to express myself and after writing this paper, I feel like I can pretty well. Writing my own paper and knowing how much it meant to me really showed me how literacy is important in the world. I think that everyone needs to tell their story when their ready and I also think that everyone needs to listen to the stories that other people write about.
ReplyDeleteSince this writing assignment was a style of writing I have never encountered before, the peer editing was essential. My rough draft was good, but not exactly what the assignment was asking for; my essay seemed linear and impersonal. My peer editors asked me to add more personal stories to it, which is what my paper needed. I feel as if my final draft turned out to be a pretty good essay. I have never done peer editing like this where the focus was on the paper as a whole, not small grammatical errors. I found it to be extremely helpful. This assignment put me outside my comfort zone as a writer, but I do think I learned how to correctly write a personal narrative in my own style. Reading Two or Three Things I Know For Sure definitely helped me understand what a personal narrative is supposed to look like. Overall I found this to be an effective and enjoyable assignment.
ReplyDeleteMy narrative changed quite a bit from the draft to the final. I found the peer feedback especially helpful because I got a different perspective on my writing than my own. I was able to fix things that I wouldn't have noticed needed fixing otherwise. I added a lot more detail to the story as I revised it. The first draft felt a little distant and impersonal, and I think with the extra detail, the reader feels more involved with the story. I learned a lot about the situation I wrote about by doing this assignment. By writing it down in a way that others could easily understand it, I thought about it differently and understood it better myself.
ReplyDeleteHere's Brooke's response:
ReplyDeleteWhen I first began with this narrative, I only knew that I wanted to write about one specific time while in Guatemala. My first night with my first home stay family. The exercise where we came up with a list of the problems, challenges, and issues we faced in this situation and the tension it created brought up a different but similar experience on this same trip, only 3 weeks later. I played with the order in which to express these two different aspects of my trip and how I could relate them to the theme of rhetoric. After the peer review, I worked on changing my dialogue set up to help the reader better understand who was speaking, but while I listened to their feed back about changing the dialogue to say “who said what” I decided to only include this in a few places because I thought it detracted from the flow of the story. From this assignment I learned that I can be a descriptive writer but I have to be careful not to make it sound too cheesy. I learned too that I like to play around with my writing by using dialogue, figurative language, and order of story. Even if it doesn't sound perfect I think it is good to experiment because, like in my story, you can learn from and laugh at these mistakes and then know for next time what did and did not work.