In this assignment, I decided to attempt a different approach then how I normally write my papers, because, let's face it, I don't write in "snapshots." I gather all of my information, make myself very familiar with the material, and sit and write the paper all the way through while surrounded by all of my material for reference. When I am done, I go back and edit for grammar and clarity. So basically, I am revising my paper as I write it, looking back on what I wrote from time to time to make sure it follows a clear line of argumentation. The closest way I could write in "snapshots" was to write something general about the piece that I read and stop. Then I let it rest for a while and reread the article--"Peace Isn't Possible in Evil's Face" by Elie Wiesel, by the way.
Once, I was more familiar with Wiesel's article, I felt better equipped to write an analysis. So I reread what I had originally wrote, and started to decide whether I still felt the same. One of the things that I noticed when I reread the article was that most of what Wiesel had written hinged upon a couple of enthymemes. So I decided to take a rhetorical analysis approach implementing Aristotle's trivium as points of analysis. I feel very comfortable analyzing rhetorical strategies in writing, and I feel that my emphasis of study affords me this level of comfortability. I also have been trying to incorporate rhetorical theory in my teaching, because I feel that it is essential to learning to writing well. So, I figured that analyzing this article using such principles was a way to kill two birds with one stone.
As it turns out, the next draft ended up being quite different. Not only had I seen the construction of the article differently than my initial reading, but I was taking a different approach. I think this is an important lesson to consider while teaching revision. Sometimes, revision doesn't mean that we add to or subtract from our first drafts but that we almost throw out what we had wrote in favor of something "better." Sometimes, first drafts are garbage drafts, and that's OK.
I also included bulleted lists of the different premises of each enthymeme, but in the end, I decided that it was better to put them in prose form. I had to adjust my extended quotes to be indented one inch instead of one-half an inch...oops. And here is the funny part: for some reason, I assumed that Elie was a woman's name. As it turns out, I was wrong. Go figure. So all of my she's and her's should be he's and his's.
Overall, I think it may be beneficial to write this draft and present it to my students as a way of doing this assignment, but I taught the textual analysis as my first assignment of the semester. I think I may try this in the future, but I'm not sure how effective it would be. I've given my students models of "correct" ways to write a paper before, and some still did not get it. I'm not sure that my version would be much different. Even in hindsight of writing this paper and seeing how it would help, I think I could have done just an effective job with someone else's draft. This assignment did, however, get me thinking more about the tools in my pedagogical bag.
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Sometimes, revision doesn't mean that we add to or subtract from our first drafts but that we almost throw out what we had wrote in favor of something "better." Sometimes, first drafts are garbage drafts, and that's OK.
How I wish I could get this across to my students! I mentioned that to them and got the Look of Horror (tm) at my suggestion that they could toss out their hard-earned work, over which they sweated blood and dripped all over the paper, and have to do it again.
I think the problem with suggesting that is that our students are just now getting used to the idea that their work is theirs, and they feel a certain parental protection over it. (Like we ever really get over that protectiveness.) The very thought of willingly getting rid of something they worked so hard on, having to wrangle it from their brains inch by inch, and then having to do the same thing again, just kills them. Inspiration doesn't come to them as it sometimes does to us; it's a monumental effort for them sometimes just to write the paper, much less think about it again and write it in a different way.
Of course, that doesn't mean they shouldn't do it, but I sort of see why they would hesitate.
I felt that the models in Composing Ourselves did just as much as my Textual Analysis to give the students aan example, so I didn't see it as effective in the sense of giving me a proper model, but at least I have personal access to the process of my paper. But I don't think that is something I would want to share with them either: like you I tend to write the whole paper at once, revising on the fly. I do not want my students doing that at this early stage.
In the garbage bin of my brain lay all the garbage drafts of my life. Most ideas don't flesh out well and deserve to be taken behind the barn and shot.
I think in many areas of our lives we try to mend broken things- broken drafts, broken arms, whatever, when the best thing would probably be to lop that sucker off at the elbow and get rid of your manual transmission. Or at least start a fresh draft.
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