classroom reflection

hey everyone,

I want to share this experience with one of my students with all of you because I know you can appreciate it.

One of my students, I will call her Chris, stayed after class last week to work with me on our current writing project (Project #2). She was a bit confused about the assignment and wanted to go over structure, thesis, etc. We worked for about 30 minutes and she left my office feeling good about her work and with a clear direction for revision. So, today she decided to come to my office hours again to talk about the first paper she wrote for my class (Project #1). She was upset about her grade but has the opportunity to revise it for more points, so she was really engaged in our conversation. Again, we talked about structure, thesis, and genre--all things that needed significant improvement from her first draft. As she stood up to leave she said something every teacher and tutor (consultant, assistant) wants to hear. It was something like this: "I'm just now realizing that my rough draft isn't necessarily going to be my final draft--it's more like a starting point. It takes time to develop my ideas and my paper."

This sounds like such an obvious statement to us, but my students are at a really important point in their development as writers. For most of them, this is just their second semester out of high school, so they haven't been writing at the college level very long. I know that for me, I was a "one draft wonder" in high school. I wrote many of my assignments the class period before they were due and really didn't know how to revise an essay. I think that Chris has had a similiar experience, so it feels great to be a part of her development as a writer. I know that she would have gotten to this point one way or another, but I feel really special being there with her. I know that last part was super dorky, so I'm going to end this thing here:)

Carrie