Before I dive into the more analytical thought that blossomed from reading the assigned articles, I feel that I must reflect on my revising processes as a writer. With this, I choose to be honest and reveal that I do not revise very much. I hate it. When I sit down and write something, I never force myself to. When I write, I have carefully constructed plan in my head after taking time to consider all of the information at hand and what my options are to do with said information. Thus, when I am done, I feel confident about it because I have rendered a careful response – I don’t. need to revise because I have thought about all the mistakes I could have made and did not make them. Here is the problem: I am not omnipotent (this is a huge problem). As I begin to write more than I ever have, I find that sometimes I do need to revise, and it is fine. But why do I not want to do it? Maybe I will stumble upon the answer here…

From Witte’s Preaching What We Practice: A Study of Revision (2013), a high school history teacher who participated in the study stated, “My seniors are very much caught up in editing mechanics and grammar, as opposed to really rethinking a piece of writing or thinking about what that vision for that piece of writing is,” (42). This very much stood out to me, and closely relates to what I will be discussing in a couple of weeks. Student gets caught up in the surface level issues like spelling or using the wrong form of there, their, or they’re. They fix the issue so the paper looks a bit better aesthetically, but they sometimes do not understand the larger issues that may be at hand, such as organization or clarity. Thus, I think the issue that this article points out is that we have to teach the students how to identify these bigger problems (not to be interpreted that mechanical issues are not big issues, because they can be sometimes) within their own writing before teacher after teacher points it out and the student is left with red all over not knowing how to fix it (though I will present on ways on how we can encourage how to fix these problems efficiently soon!). Does this all relate back to the letter grade we all anticipate when receiving an assignment back? Or is this discomfort and lack of wanting to revise simply because we do not do enough?

Not only do we not do it enough, the medium in which our writing is communicated matters, too. The conversation of the growing importance of digital environments really interested me. Specifically, that many of the teachers that participated in the study felt that students would more likely revise if their writing were to appear in a digital space. Not only does the chance that their writing will be viewed by someone other than their teacher or even their peers be a different yet efficient form of motivation, but also the factor of interest, too. Students’ worlds today are based largely online and what they watch, post, hear, and learn from the communities they are building. They want their work to be out there. It no longer becomes a quick communication between teacher (the higher power, so to speak) and student, but rather a more equal environment where the student takes their learning into their own hands… it becomes more than just an assignment that only one person reads – it will now live somewhere intangible, unlike the papers students are used to handing in printed and stapled, to forever inspire so long as the internet lives!

Interestingly, Sommers points out that revision is a word that teachers use, and they reference to their own editing by other means, such as “reviewing”, ‘scratch out and do over again”, or “redoing” – and most of these refer to surface level changes, with the most referenced change being word choice. Further, these changes are only made because that’s how far they feel they are able to go when revising a paper; they are not comfortable scraping the whole paper and rethinking it to better assert their ideas. They are restrained to only fix syntactical errors, and anything larger will be subsequently left to fester simply because it goes beyond better wording. Here, it is understood that the student process is linear, a line that comes from the student and follows to an assignment to be handed it. Though, experienced writers see the beyond – the beyond that holds the realization that the overall vision can, and will, change.

Where have we, as teachers, misstepped? Sommers discusses the difference between the student writers and the experienced writers by experience, but not all students will reach this level if they do not continue to write. How can we show them how to realize their bigger picture? If we show students how to flip between writer-view and reader-view, will this allow them to be able to revise efficiently? If we have more than just a teacher reading their work, will they forget about mandatory criteria, to an extent, and play with their ideas? It does not always have to be point A moving directly to point B, but maybe point A sidesteps to a point A2, and then to point B, and maybe even a point B2. Why is writing only x, y, and z? What about all the space in between?

As a student given the privileges of a teacher, I find myself in an odd position; one where I understand the uncertainty that comes with reading evaluating comments from a teacher while also sometimes wearing the hat of the teacher that writes the comments. With this, I have come to realize that pedagogy, in a way, is a double-edged sword (literally): either you are being stabbed with it, or you are the one doing the stabbing (even if inadvertently).

To begin, Elbow brings the student perspective into view. He describes the weariness students have of high stakes writing (pieces that are graded and have an immense weight on overall grade in a class), and validates the fear that seems to be imbedded in many pupils. With this, he pushes the idea of frequent low stakes writing (writing that is not graded as harshly, or at all). It is argued that this low stakes writing will not only have the students practice more, but will allow them to prove to themselves they are capable of writing clear thoughts down. By taking away the weight of a number or letter being assigned to what they write down, the student is able to immerse themself in what they write and ultimately showcase their true, unfiltered thoughts.

As a student, I thank Elbow for his thoughts concerning this. When I engage in low stakes writing, and I do not expect anything particularly great to come out of it, there always seems to be one good idea that I can take and create something more out of. If we ask students to sit down and write something with strong ideas and clear language, something overall fantastic, the overwhelming duty to perform hinders the otherwise “mundane” thoughts that could turn into something great.

As a teacher-in-training, so to speak, I find that Elbow’s ideas are certainly helpful, and allow me to sympathize with the student more (which is an odd observation for me; you would think I would already be sympathetic being a student too, but I find myself to be quite the harsh grader). For example, I helped my professor grade what she described to me as a writing sample, something that seems to lean towards the low stake scale, but did not advertise this to the students. Thus, we got a mix of informal responses with very formal ones. This created quite the jump while grading, and I found myself writing comments on the more informal ones about being lost in a run-on or overall organization. Though, these were the ones that had the most personal feel to them: they used voice. The more formal ones, though littered with strong evidence and great sentence variety, seemed dull. This makes me wonder if we had told the students that it was a writing sample, just to see how each student operates, would the responses have been different? None were perfect, but with the ease of knowing that it was low stakes, would the student be more confident in composing it? Elbow thinks yes, and I am leaning that way too.

Murray emphasized the idea that writing is a process and not a product. Meaning, writing is not an act in which you start and you finish. There is a finish line at some point, whether it be end of the semester or publication, but the writing itself continues to live, and the thinking, done by the writer, does not concede.

As a student who was taught the prewrite, write, rewrite method from early on, I find that I tend to skip over the first step and greatly rely on the second and third steps (prewriting occurs in my head, so maybe I do not really skip it?). Though, I think that with any writing, as Murray explains, there is exploration. Unless the piece one is writing is personal, then one is more than likely not an expert (yet). Not only does the student explore the topic in which the content will reflect, they are exploring the way in which the writing will come about. This is one of the more important aspects to remember, as the whole point of writing is to learn and share what you learned about yourself, others, the world in general. Writing does not call for a certain mastery, only mere thoughts can blossom within other minds to become something more, and more, and more.