The Writing Process

Using Writing to Explore with Minimal Editing
Sharing, Revising, Reflecting
The Writing Process Assignments
Other Links

Many traditional textbooks teach writing by identifying features of an essay and asking students to reproduce them.  But the journey that writers take to compose a final draft is often not reflected in that finished piece. The readings in this section help students to take this journey and to see writing not as a tool to transcribe what they already know, but as a medium for exploring, re-thinking, and revising.

Using Writing to Explore with Minimal Editing:

• Lamott, Anne. “Shitty First Drafts.” Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Anchor, 2005. 21-27. 
  Lamott recounts her process in writing a shitty first draft of a restaurant review and then globally revising it in the the second draft.
  
  
• Lamott, Anne. “Perfectionism.” Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Anchor, 2005. 28-32.
  Novelist Anne Lamott tells us that “Very few writers really know what they are doing until they've done it.” Not only that, but an internal voice keeps telling them that while they’re writing, what they’re doing isn’t any good.  In these two essays, Lamott describes her messy writing process and suggests ways of thinking about writing that will keep writers from sabotaging themselves.
  
  
• Stafford, W. "A Way of Writing" 
  Stafford describes his writing process, including “the precious little area of confusion when I do not know what I am going to say and then I find out what I am going to say.”
  
  
• Elbow, Peter. “How to Improve your Writing Through Free Writing Exercises.”  Writing Without Teachers. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. 1-4.  
  Elbow describes the importance of creating a writing space that banishes editing.  He suggests that generating and editing are two important parts of the writing process, but that it’s often counter-productive to do both at the same time.
  
  
• Murray, D. (1972, November). “Teach Writing as a Process Not Product.” The Leaflet. 11-14.
  Addressing writing teachers in this short, seminal piece, Murray argues for teachers to give students control of their writing and teach process rather than merely products to be dissected like pieces of literature.  He lists ten implications of constructing a writing class around this model which often resonate with students.
  
  
• Murray, Donald. “All Writing Is Autobiography.” College Composition and Communication. 42.1 (1991); 66-74. Print.
  Murray draws on his own work to explain how all writing--from poetry, to fiction, to non-fiction, to academic writing--draws on the writer’s interests and obsessions. He argues for a writing course and that does not assign topics for papers but rather encourages students to “explore the questions that itch our lives.”
  
  
• Vonnegut, Kurt. “How to Write With Style.” IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication. 24:2 (1980): 66-67. Print.
  In this brief piece, novelist Kurt Vonnegut gives advice about how to think about being a writer and how to think about one’s readers with a focus on brevity.

Sharing, Revising, Reflecting:

• Straub, Richard. "Responding-Really Responding-to Other Students' Writing"
  Some practical advice to students on how to respond to their classmates’ writing along with examples.
  
  

• Hewitt, Beth. "From Topic to Presentation: Making Choices to Develop Your Writing"
  Students need to learn how to revise their writing based on readers' feedback, but they rarely know how to make such decisions. This chapter teaches students how to make decisions about essay development and revision by modeling and explaining a writing teacher's decision-making process.
  
  
• Dethier, Brock. “Revising Attitudes”
  Dethier explains that all writers, even professionals, have to overcome a resistance to revising.  He encourages students to explore why writers resist revising in order to see revision in a more positive light. He then offers advice on how to go about the revising process.
  
  

• Giles, Sandra. "Reflective Writing and the Revision Process: What Were You Thinking?"
  Giles writes about her own experiences struggling to write reflectively about her own writing process, why this struggle was worth it, and how students can use reflection to grow as writers.
  
  
• Murray, Donald M. "Making Meaning Clear: The Logic of Revision"
  Murray explains that writing and revising are tools writers use to think and make meaning clear. He provides his revision checklist along with a description of each step, which can serve as a how-to guide to show students what substantial revision is and how it differs from proofreading.
  

The Writing Process Assignments:

Please click through these links to explore the other suggested readings categories:

• Multimedia/Multimodal Composition
• Rhetoric, Genre, and Discourse
• Research as Inquiry

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Click here to view recommended assignments for ENG 1100

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