In response to Lori and Pre-Writing

Lori, I really like that you brought up the importance of knowing when to use pre-writing. If we end up teaching in an ELI or university situation where our students are preparing to take exams and write in academic situations, the idea of knowing when to pre-write and when not to pre-write (or at least when not to spend too much time on pre-writing) and strategies related to the two would be a great topic for in-class discussion and practice.

I have thought a lot about the way I write and whether or not it is productive and efficient. I used to worry that my hatred for "pre-writing" as described by previous teachers meant that I am not a good writer or that I do not write "correctly". All these years of self-consciousness about my writing style all because teachers forced me to use diagrams, etc. to pre-write. After coming home from class when we talked about pre-writing, I realized that I had written an entry on my personal blog about my writing style only a week earlier. To quote myself: "Outlines and pre-written thesis statements just aren't my style. I always wondered why I found the writing process such a torture. You write the thesis, you write the outline and you're stuck in a box of unchangeable topics. It works for some but somehow not for me. (And, yes, I know the topics are changeable but an outline somehow seems like a jail to me.)"

That's the way I felt as a student and looking back on that I never want to make my students feel tortured or jailed or blocked from writing by the very process I am using to help them write. While I believe that sometimes we as students need to be made to do things we don't like so that we can grow and learn, I believe that teaching students to pre-write is one area that needs to be approached with extreme caution and forethought. I really, really benefited from our conversation in class about pre-writing. I have come to realize that any writing that happens before the final draft of a paper is pre-writing.

I have spent so much time trying as hard as I could to not call what I do pre-writing because of the bad experiences I have had pre-writing in classes. It really does feel like a jail when a teacher grades you for pre-writing in one set way. However, just as every student learns differently and studies differently every student might have to write differently. I really like the idea that we discussed about practicing with and encouraging students to use different pre-writing methods. It may take more class time but might avoid years of frustration on the students' part. I think it is also a good idea to make sure our students know what the real purpose behind all the pre-writing practices. It seems a lot of the frustration on the students' side comes from not understanding why the teacher is making you jump through all these pre-writing hoops. Why can't I just turn in the final product? After approaching my highschool senior English teacher, completely frustrated because I felt like each sentence had to be perfect before I added it to my paper, he said only one phrase to me: "Get it down, then get it good." So simple, but knowing that all these processes and tricks and methods were there just to help me get out all my thoughts so that I could make them perfect later somehow opened the flood gates to let my writing flow.

I am very excited to learn as the years go by how to help each student find their own writing style, pushing them to grow without putting them in a box.