Blog #4: Processing the Process

As much as I’ve helped students develop drafts, I can’t say I have ever taken this long to compose a piece of writing. I usually do some prewriting and then just dive into an essay, but I’ve found myself thinking about the final product a lot more. I am becoming a lot more self aware of the steps I take and what it is I want to write, but that is only because I am talking out my ideas with my fellow class mates. My students also had to write a literacy autobiography at the beginning of this semester, so I had the opportunity to see them think through their ideas. Lindemann proposes that collaborative learning is one way of generating content, and I have honestly found that part of it to be incredibly helpful. As I was talking about my experience with writing and reading in relation to soccer, I realized there was a gap that I had not planned on discussing—mostly because I did not realize that there was a gap. However, my group—Jennifer, Faty, and Ebony—kept asking me questions that I had not even considered. I wrote most of them down, and I think there is definitely a lot more I need to think about and consider.

I have been trying these collaborative learning techniques in my workshops, and I have found that my students are a lot more at ease asking questions both of each other and of me. I’ve also tried modeling pre-writing strategies for them which allowed them the space to ask questions about the prompt and their ideas. 

Honestly, I like the idea of writing as a process because a lot of it is about making students aware of their own voice and the mistakes they make with Standard Academic English. In taking it step by step, they start understanding the culture that they are writing in and hopefully manipulating it to reflect who they are as writers. I know this last bit is more my idealized thinking, but I am optimistic and intrigued by the ways I can teach my students the different steps in the writing process.