Teaching 7th and 8th graders how to
write is lot different than being in an MFA creative writing program. One is
the raw stuff of literacy, the rudimentary. The other is an exercise in
sculpting art. At work I
spend a lot of time teaching children to think, speak, and write in sentences.
Punctuation is a big part of my day. Periods and commas, capitals and quotes. Commas,
yes. You teach commas to a 12 year old boy who only wants to be wrestling his
friend to the floor. Highly literate and mature girls are also among my
students. They enjoy writing and crafting meaningful work, and they care about
how commas are used.
Bu no matter the writing ability, it seems the same problems
persist in revising our rough drafts. When do we focus on organization and
ideas, versus when do we edit for conventions and sentence craft?
The“writing process” model taught in
schools emphasizes revision first, as if the student will simply shuffle
around sentences, delete repetitions, and describe in more detail. The more
advanced my student, the more possible it is for them to jump into this task.
But if your sentences are gobbledy-gook, running on, fragmented, confused,
you’ve got to fix them first. Your thoughts must be complete and comprehensible
before they can be organized.
Some children will show me lengthy paragraphs with nary a
period in sight. Or words so creatively spelled, or spell-checked, that we must
correct. The more struggling the writer, the more important it is to edit
first.
And what of myself? One might think, oh, she’s an educated
person, an English teacher in possession of one Master’s Degree already. Surely
her sentences are fine. After the initial copy editing, I should be ready to
revise, re-organize, shape my essays into their long awaited form.
But if I’ve learned anything from the MFA program or my
students, it’s that my word and sentence craft always needs work. Is my
language concrete? Verbs active? Nouns specific? Are all my commas well placed
or even necessary? Has the sentence lost its meaning in a rambling clause, or
been overloaded with images? Or perhaps I’ve indulgently overused adjectives
and ridiculously descriptive adverbs.
To what end does the careful sentence and word work
illuminate the structure and the meaning of the written work? No doubt the more
polished my writing is, the easier it is to work on structure and explore
meaning.
Sometimes I sit down at a draft revision and I don’t know
where or how to start making changes. So I begin at the beginning. I read and
listen to each word, each sentence, attempting to craft for clarity, beauty, and
meaning. Through this careful sentence and work word, ideas may spring,
organizational problems may resolve, connections not seen will be brought to
light.
Revise/edit, edit/revise. In the spiralic process of
writing, I can’t always keep track. For me the revision/editing process is the
opportunity to fall in love in with my own words, again and again.
I’m wondering how it works for other writers, teachers, and students.
Feel free to share your thoughts on the process.
Next week, Joys of Revision 2!
