Sunday, March 17, 2013
Response to Muriel Harris Reading
Muriel Harris' article Composing Behaviors of One-and Muti-draft Writers has helped me understand my own writing process much better. I am more of a one draft writer who revises as I go along. I completely understand the benefits of revision, but I don't feel that it is necessary for our students to generate draft after draft after draft to achieve their desired result. If students can produce an effective and quality writing in one-draft, more power to them! One thing that Harris emphasizes repeatedly is that whether we are a "one-drafter" or a "multi-drafter" writer, we "have not arrived at this developmentally or as a result of training in writing" (178). My question then, is where and how did we learn how to write this way. Are these natural, inborn traits? She does argues that most writers fall somewhere in the middle of this continuum, but her research results did not explain how one-drafters and multi-drafters came to learn their craft if it was not arrived at developmentally or as a result of any training in writing. Perhaps I am misreading her argument; I'm not certain what she means by these suggestions.
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I agree, Peggy. Harris's essay is an interesting one, but does miss a couple of things. She also seems to contradict herself regarding the one-draft writers. At one point she asks us not to confuse them with procrastinators; later, she says that one-draft writers do procrastinate. She also seems to say that writer-based writing (what multi-draft writers are often drawn toward) needs to be corrected, while just a bit later affirming its usefulness. All in all, it is a fascinating article. As most of us fall on the spectrum, her findings are general reminders to fine-tune our teaching toward the writers we find in our classrooms. My main question is how Harris would revise her essay today. As just about everyone uses word-processing software to write, revision has become far easier. I wonder how many one-draft writers have begun to draft a bit more in 2013.
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