Saturday, November 7, 2020

The Writing Process


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"Rewriting is the essence of writing well: its where the game is won or lost. That idea is hard to accept. We all have an emotional equity in our first draft; we can’t believe that it wasn’t born perfect. But the odds are close to 100 percent that it wasn’t.” William Zinsser  ‘Writing Well’(p.83)


The statement above reveals that the author, William Zinsser had great confidence in the writing process. I recently came across the statement and totally agree it.  Writing a finished piece most definitely requires much patience. During my childhood years, writing was a constant challenge for me. I loved writing but lacked the organizational skills necessary to produce excellent pieces. I can not remember being ever introduced to the writing process while at the primary school level. Now I have an understanding of the writing process, I am better able to organize my writing. This five step process is magical. It includes: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, publishing. 

    I was able to apply the principles of the writing process to my writing recently, and just like Mr. Zinsser, I found out that some of the emotional equities in my first draft certainly wasn’t born perfect. Much had to be cut, moved around and adjusted before tying up all the knots. Also there is no doubt in my mind that rewriting certainly is the essence of writing well. I will make use of the writing process during instruction since the student that I work with are deaf/hard of hearing and often struggle with language; writing in particular.  I will definitely introduce my students to the writing process.




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2 comments:

  1. Ashel, that quotation by William Zinsser is so true as I have experienced that same feeling many times before, after penning a piece of writing. However, after learning about the writing process, I realized that a perfect piece of writing takes time and should be developed through a process. This process has helped me to become even better at my writing craft and erase unnecessary stress that I was putting on myself.

    Is there any step of the process that you struggle with more than the others, and if so, how do you combat this?

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  2. Hey Erica, one of the stages that can be most challenging for me is the prewriting stage. It seems so difficult to get the ball rolling at times. When faced with this situation I sometime would go online and do some reading or find pictures on the topic. These attempts would help to create a mental picture of the topic. At other times I would simply day dream to be able to gain a visual picture to be able to start prewriting.

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