5 THE RIGHT TO WRITE BADLY

"You have to put down less than marvelous material just to keep going to whatever you think the end might be - which may be something else altogether by the time you get there." Larry Gelbart, Writing Changes Everything

Stephen King says, "Only God gets it right the first time." (2000)
Encouraging students to get their words on paper in a rough draft is critical to helping them learn what it takes to be a good writer. I felt so strongly about this that I required students to turn in a rough draft with their final copy whenever I assigned writing for credit. It seems like that would have solved the problem...encouraged students to reflect on their writing and make needed adjustments, but, unfortunately, students often just copied their rough draft over, neater, and in ink.

Students need to understand that a rough draft is an exploratory copy, but a necessary copy. This is where conferencing is helpful. Talking with students about their intent and asking clarifying questions allows students to understand where they are going in the piece. Between the rough draft and the final draft is also a great time for a minilesson using your own writing to talk about your process. What were you thinking when you first started writing the piece? How did that change as you came to the end? Are there sections that you would switch around? Have students switch their introduction and conclusion. Does the paper still work? Show them where, in your piece, you needed more detail. Ask them to search their piece for similar areas. Give them a reason to write a final draft that is better than the rough draft.

"Our goal as teachers should not be to fill the world with perfect text or even acceptable text. Our goal should be to take students to such a place of comfort with writing that they will persist through three pages of random thought to an emerging clarity on page four..."Vicki Spandel, p. 72 The 9 Rights of Every Writer

Besides requiring rough drafts, another way to make students aware of their growth as writers is to have them keep in-class or online portfolios - copies of their writing throughout the year. I found that allowing them to see their progress over time was interesting, gratifying and helpful to them and to me. Even now, I hear from students who talk about their writing portfolios from 8th grade and how much they learned by focusing on the writing process.