Blog Post 36: Discovering My Writing Process

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Throughout English 109H, I learned a lot about myself as a writer and writing in general.

For instance, in my AP English classes, I knew that pre-writing was sometimes necessary, but sometimes it just seemed like a nuisance; however, in this class, I saw the true value of pre-writing. Maybe it had to do with the fact that the pre-writing was in the form of the blog posts, but it just didn't feel as academic and that's what I kind of liked about it. There wasn't always this big stress on the assignment but more of the process and just what we were thinking. It helped to shape my thought process.

As far as my writing process in general goes, I consider myself to be somewhere in between a heavy planner and a heavy reviser. For some assignments, I plan a lot, and for others, I skip straight to the drafting process and just revise multiple times. It depends on the assignment; if I am really knowledgeable about it, I usually plan a lot and if I'm not, I just free write until I discover what I want to say. It may seem backwards, but if I know a lot on the topic, then I know what to say- I just have to plan my organization. However, if I don't know about the topic, I just start writing and edit as I go along to see what I like and don't like about my writing.

In most cases, my writing process seems to be successful, but it just depends because not every assignment is the same or is structured the same for that matter. The strengths of the heavy planning include being able to have less stress when it comes to drafting and having everything laid out. The weaknesses are that it requires a lot of time and thinking. The strengths of the heavy revising are that I don't feel required to stick to my plan; I can change things where I see fit. The weaknesses include some disorganization in my writing.

I don't think it would be beneficial for me to become a procrastinator because that is just a bad habit, but I could maybe try being a sequential composer and see if that works. Honestly though, my approaches work for me so I don't know that trying sequential composing would benefit me, at least, I wouldn't want to try it on my final assignment.