WHY I WRITE: MAPPING OUT MY PROCESS
As a manifesto for the Minor in Writing, the Why I Write paper explores the question that has lead me to pursue this minor and why I love to write. As with any question trying to explain a particular phenomenon, I look to my past experiences with writing and learning to write that lead me to writing today. Having to never really think about the question at hand, my analysis of my writing growing up provides tremendous insight into who I am as a writer today.
Below, I chart out the progress this piece has taken from its planning stages to final destination.
SKETCH DRAFT
FINAL DRAFT
PEER REVIEW
When it was discovered that we could write sketch drafts to earn additional points for our gamification system, I was extremely excited. Sketch drafts are something that I have been doing since last semester that allow me to plan out my writing so I’m not just going off what’s in my head. This very preliminary draft allows me to give my draft a purpose, and by completing a sketch draft I have ideas to go back to when the drafting process actually begins. While the format of the one below was a little more formal than what I usually do when I outline a paper, it proved very helpful to me.
For the first peer review of the semester I was very nervous as to how my peers would interpret or enjoy my writing. Luckily, I had a supportive peer group who were able to point out problems to me that I myself could not see. One new part of the revision process to me was utilizing the notes function to give our partners a sense of where we think we need work in the piece. I really appreciated the value that the self-reflexive comments added to the piece. Sometimes when you are browsing something that you’ve written that’s up for peer review you don’t always catch what you wanted or needed to work on for later.Also, I wrote my first ever author’s note for this piece, another way to let my peers know at what stage of the process I was at with my piece and how I felt about its progress.
