Writing, Mirror-Fashion

Over the course of my first semester teaching, I've tried a number of different activities, exercises, and assignments with varying degrees of success. Some things just don't work, for reasons I don't realize until I try them out and see them flop. Others, though, they click.

Today I read through my students' writing reflections for their last formal essay. Whatever else I do next semester, I'm absolutely doing this. The jist: after turning in their essays, the students turn around and write a 1-2 page reflection paper on it. I ask them to talk about their process of writing the paper, and especially what they think they did well, and/or what was difficult. They write these before they get their graded essays returned to them, so their comments on what worked and what didn't are based wholely in their own perceptions. It makes for fascinating reading.

I think the first time I asked the students to do this, they didn't really know what I was asking for. This second time, they've gotten braver about admitting their struggles/challenges and many of the reflections were more honest and less about "I think I did well." This time I had a handful of students make comments about what could have been stronger about their essay which were almost the exact same things I commented on.

One of the things that's been in my mind while thinking about writing, learning to write, and attempting to teach it is that most writers/students are smarter than they think they are. When we take shortcuts in our writing, we tend to know it. When we are particularly proud of something we've written, it's more likely than not because it's one of the strongest things we've written. This is especially true when we take the time to think about the parts of our writing and why something works or doesn't.

So, I ask my students to take that time and I've been very happy with the results. My comments on these reflections are minimal. Mostly I just underline the parts where a student says, "This time I did X differently, and it worked better" and "If I had spent more time doing X, this paper would have been better." They don't need me to say anything, they're already figuring it out on their own. It's beautiful.

In light of this, I offer a question and a challenge to you:

Question: When's the last time you wrote about something you've written and talked specifically about the strong and weak elements of it? How'd that go?

Challenge: Take out something that you've written (something you're particulary pleased with, something you're not pleased with, or your most recent project). Read through it again. Now take out a piece of paper or open a new Word document and write about that project. Write out what you like or don't like about it and why. Can you think of any strategies for changing what you don't like? Can you think of any ways to translate your success with this particular piece into the way you write in the future?