Writing is an Expression of Embodied Cognition
Writing comes from full engagement of the writer. Already, we know that when we write, we’re using our brain. Even if we are simply writing about something that we do not really care about, it still takes brain power to think our thoughts and then translate them onto the page. Whether hand writing or typing, a physicality is then added to the process. Thus, it takes, as Howard Gardner described, full human. dimension to write as well as interpret what we read. If we leave out a part of ourselves, we set ourselves up for a sort of failure — one that does not allow us to fully understand the meaning of what we are writing or reading.
For myself, it totally takes my whole being to write. For my brain, it has to come up with thoughts and then figure out how to say those thoughts in ways that other people will understand. For my fingers, they have to be able to type said thoughts. For the rest of my body, it has to be head-on ready to be able to sit long enough to compose something successful. As much work as this sounds to be, it is quite normal and easier than one may otherwise think. After a while, all of these factors of embodied cognition work seamlessly in time with each other. It just takes practice. By listening to yourself, you will be able to establish a rhythm, like a dancer does when performing to music. There is a beat to be followed, but in writing, it might not be the same as everyone else’s. Write to the beat of your own drum.
Failure Can Be an Important Part of Writing Development
I would like to reflect on the first time I read work by Anne Lamott. As assigned by Dr. Friend in one of his classes, I engaged with her piece titled “Shitty First Drafts“. I recall being taken by the title. Without reading any further, I already decided I did not agree. Having a bad first draft was never something I experienced. Up until that point in my writing career (barely a career at that point — I was eighteen), every time I sat down to write, I got up with a piece that was successful and overall got the job done. Revision was something I never had to do.
Revisiting this idea now, I find that I revise almost all of my writing. I am more careful with what I type, and I am more likely to read it over more closely. I am unsure if this is because I am writing pieces that require a higher caliber of thinking than was necessary during my time as an undergraduate, or if I have gotten off of my high horse. There is no shame in recognizing that something does not work. The most important aspect of writing, at least for me, is ensuring the reader(s) have the ability to understand and connect to the words. This cannot be done if one cannot overlook the possibility of being unsuccessful on the first try. Or even the second, and third.
By choosing to accept failure, we choose to learn.
Revision is Central to Developing Writing
As stated before, revision as a crucial step in my writing process is an addition that is fairly new. Now that I am not only a writer but an assistant to teaching writing, I find that revision is more helpful. Being on the other side of the road, I now understand that when a teacher refers revision, it is a good thing.
I want to relate this to numerous experiences I had as a dancer growing up. Dancing on the pre-professional level is difficult, and you always want to be the one person that shines among the rest. Writing is kind of like that, too. Instead of pulling out all of the cool, impressive tricks like consecutive turns or flips, sometimes when we write, we put on another identity… We pull out the thesaurus and find fancy words to sound smarter, or throw in a semicolon to add sentence variety. Though in dance, it is said that if a teacher gives you several corrections (and I mean a lot), that means they see potential in you, and know you are capable of making those corrections. I view revision like this. When an instructor advises me to take a look again at what I have written, I know it is because it is fixable and will make me better. My words will dance on the page.
Going back to the idea of being a student teaching assistant, when I tell students to revise, they get very nervous. I had one student email me in a frenzy, stating they hoped to get a better grade with their revisions because they did not want to start the semester with “such a low grade”. The grade was an 86.
Conflating numbers with writing was the worst decision education policymakers could have made. Now, students think their writing can only reach a 100, which I do not believe to be true. Effective, masterful writing goes beyond a zero to 100 scale. If students focused more on the skills they could learn from hearing their teachers out on what they should fix instead of what number appears as a grade, they would not feel so confined as to what they can accomplish. Writing is not as static as a number. Writing, and the words that compose it, are dynamic. As said before, they can dance on the page into a reader’s mind when they have the right touch. And this does not always happen on the first try.
Revision Strategies of Student Writer and Experienced Adult Writers
As writers, we must be able to see how the parts affect the whole. By thinking about our writing, not only how it sounds but how is delivers the message, we are able to create meaning for ourselves and for the reader. Through navigation of the words that complete the sentence, and how the sentences complete the paragraph, and how the paragraphs complete the piece, we can appreciate, from the ground up, what our writing is, or is not, accomplishing. [Most] Students cannot do this; Experienced writers can.
Instead of the students’ preferred way of “slashing and throwing out”, experienced writers revise, or rewrite. Students admitted their distaste for the word “revise”, and I think may stem from the prefix of re-. When re- is put in front of anything, we realize it is because whatever was completed before has to be, to some degree, done again. For students, the idea of revising something, as opposed to reviewing, indicates action that is not inferred with reviewing. ReVIEWing may mean to read over again and that is all. ReVISing means more work needs to be done at a greater level. It is a scary thing to do.
I am unsure of when I began to revise in the same way each time. Similar to one of the experienced writers, I revise as I go. There is no true first draft because I am constantly rethinking. Though, it was not always like this, as described in previous sections of this post. The ability to make connections with different things as I move along is a skill that has taken me years to master. Though, if we demonstrate to students the revision process, at its most specific levels, will not look for the same for every writer, but the overall idea of envisioning the purpose of the composition, and what it needs to get to its most effective, is the same, then students will understand what revision is. It is not just the trade of one word for another, but rather a conversation between concepts that should be loud and clear.
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