Calming anxiety over the writing process
23 01 2007The writing process. These three words have always brought anxiety and a sense of impending doom to my life. I love to write but I am the type of person who waits until the very last moment then dashes out an A paper and doesn’t even bother to look at the comments when it is returned. Although this technique has gotten me through high school, two bachelors degrees, heavy on the writing (in English and strategic communications) and most of my teaching license program it has not helped propel my writing forward.
When I read through the Williams’ chapters and Carney article more bad memories came back to me. These were memories of the times when I did create drafts, only to have them riped to shreds by my peers- not my writing style, or even my horrid spelling (since I thought that a rough draft did not need to be spell checked since in my mind that was the point of the process); but instead I was personally attacked.
Granted the negative feelings that I had, and to some extent still reluctantly have, about the writing process and peer editing have to do with my bad experiences. However with these in mind, and the fact that I want to use the writing process and think peer editing is a fantastic way to go through papers, how can I make it work? How can I make sure that my students do not have the adverse reaction -almost an anaphalatic shock, in need of an epi-pen reaction-that I have to the process?
Is it even possible to teach seventh graders the peer editing process and have them take it seriously? I am not doubting their ability or their mental prowess at this age, simply if it is an effective strategy.
I think that the most important thing is to make the phases or stages of writing clear. To help students understand that they don’t have to write a perfect draft the first time and like Williams and Carney said, it is not a personal attack or an attack on the writing to edit it.
I hear ya. I think that the most important aspect of a productive (vs. abusive) writing workshop is that the environment needs to be positive. Can that happen in middle school? Sometimes. Depends on the kids and how they’re grouped, and how much trust they can establish. During intersession we had a group that worked really well together in a workshop setting, mainly because they were excited about what we were doing and they were friends.
Another group we had didn’t work well at all in a workshop. I think that choice of groupings might help this in some instances. Friends want to help, and if you’re forced into groups the nasty instinct rears its ugly head. That’s the workshop that you and I (and probably most people) experienced in college.
Atwell does a good job in her article with laying out how she models peer conferencing. That was the most helpful part of her article. Check out pg 158-159 in her article to see how she demonstrates “successful” and “not-so-successful” peer conferences. I think it was the most helpful part of this article. Kids can definitely be overwhelmed by “the writing process,” but I think this sort of modeling can really help kids understand how they can help one another.