*The following is a rough draft of a paper I have written for my teaching writing class. The purpose of the assignment is to reflect/describe my writing process. Thoughts and comments appreciated!*
Never the End
As we age, undoubtedly our lives see some progress. Evidenced in
nearly all areas of our lives, progress takes a special meaning for
me in the development of my writing process. Although many people
claim rectilinear progression in the
development of their writing process I claim an elliptical
progression that has brought my process, not quality, near again to
its origin. Most especially I claim this as truth relative to the
“pre-writing” and “revision” portions of my writing process.
But more than simply the process I go through to write a paper, I see
writing as a process to be admired without a finish.
In the beginning is the topic. Then along comes the writer, and
sometimes good things happen. As a second grade writer the
“pre-writing” steps always involved charts, forms, and other
nonsense to fill out in an attempt to teach “the” writing
process, and how to coherently develop arguments. The authority then
read and commented on the nature of these forms offering praise and
guidance to the beginning writer. While well intentioned, this
methodology irked me as a second grader because I felt it a waste of
time. Some what ironically, my current writing process has
“developed” similar patterns to those taught so long ago. Now
almost without fail as I sit down to write a paper, some form of it
is subjected to the “authority”, of the internet. That is my
“pre-writing”, I let the people of the internet look at my paper
in its most unpolished form, and amazingly, like the teacher's
insights, the ideas that come from other peoples can help rework a
paper to its perfection.
Then after receiving input and depending on the state of the paper,
it needs active writing and some polishing. Back in the second grade
almost all of the polishing comes from a draft submitted again to the
authority (and occasionally your grammar centered mother). Now I
print my own drafts, read them out loud (try to remember all of the
grammar rules), and send another copy to the internet. Although
currently more of the process is independent, than in the second
grade, the crucial element of a second set of eyes has never left.
Thus the elliptical nature of my progression has returned the
process to the origin of the progression, another set of eyes. Not
only does the bug principle apply to the origin of the progression,
but it also serves as the theme to the progress. For me the steps to
this writing process does not the paper make, but rather it is that
theme of letting orther people into your process and seeing it as a
product in and of itself. That matters the most to me. No piece of
writing is ever truly finished, every piece should start a
conversation, continue a conversation, but never finish one.
