"Why do my teachers want me to write more than one draft?"

Writing assignments used to be made something like this: a teacher would come to class and say, "I want a 500-word comparison-contrast essay by next Friday." The students would go away and write something (counting the words, of course) and turn it in. Sometimes the teacher would be helpful and specify a topic, sometimes not. The paper would come in, be marked (usually in code like cs or frag) and graded and returned to the student. The grade would be recorded in the grade book and that was it - until the next time. Writing was a product, something that you had to make and were graded on, but never taught how to do.

In the last two decades, a revolution has taken place in what we mean by writing and how we go about teaching and doing it. This revolution is usually referred to as Writing Process or the Process of Writing.

It means that we see writing as component parts like pre-writing, draft, and revision. It means that to get better as a writer you need to practice each of those parts. It means we will focus on one stage at a time; we won't ignore the others, but we will pay more attention to pre-writing at the beginning of our work and highlight revision toward the end. This doesn't mean that when we work on revision you can forget about pre-writing. And it doesn't mean that when doing pre-writing, we won't be trying to put the pre-writing to use in some final, revised content.

It means that we learn to be better writers just as we learn to be better swimmers or better piano players - by taking the process in small steps and practicing each step. You don't call someone who has never had the opportunity to practice in a swimming pool or at a piano a "bonehead" swimmer or a "bonehead" pianist. She has not had the chance yet to develop her potential. Composition classes will give you the opportunity to develop your potential as a writer.

In addition, writing is recursive. That means at any point in writing something - let's say a letter - you may get another idea and have to return to an earlier stage to incorporate and develop your idea. Otherwise your letter would be a series of P.S.'s.

Writing and pre-writing

One of the first steps in writing is gathering material. It is writing, in the sense that you are usually moving a pen or pencil across paper, but the function of pre-writing is to let you gather material without worrying about issues like organizing or editing your work.

Why pre-write?

When writers try to find ideas or form ideas, organize their ideas persuasively, do the actual writing, and edit for such things as spelling, they find that they are trying to pat their heads, rub their tummies, twirl hula hoops and hop on one foot ALL at the same time. These physical feats can be done all at once, perhaps by an Olympic athlete with superb coordination, but the rest of us find such deeds nearly impossible. All of us can, however, pat our heads as well as an Olympic athlete can. So for most of us, the key is dividing work into manageable steps. Pre-writing guarantees that you, as a writer, will have explored your topic and amassed a considerable amount of specific detail before you begin to organize, draft, or edit.

Based on studies done on student writing, the one thing students can do to significantly increase the grades they receive on written assignments is to give more detail and to make that detail relevant to the task assigned. How does a student find and develop the detail necessary to persuade an instructor that the paper she holds in her hand is an "A" or a "B" as opposed to a "D" or a "C"?

One way is to fully explore your ideas. The first idea you have is not necessarily the best. If you take three to five minutes and jot down all the possiblities, you have a choice. If you take your first idea and don't do prewriting, you're stuck with your first idea. It could be great, but why take the chance?

Another area writers ignore is sense impressions. These are a strong source of detail. If your topic is a job you held, how did the job smell, look, taste, sound, feel? Can you imagine how effective a detailed "smell" description of working in a meat department might be? What colors predominated? Can you be more specific than "blue"? How about thinking in terms of "as blue as"? How did it feel? Cold? Warm? Dry? Wet? Did you feel it behind your eyes? In your fingertips? Were there tastes associated with the job? Did you work in a fast food restaurant and go home not only smelling of greasy French fries but also finding that you couldn't get the grease taste out of your mouth, no matter how much Listerine you used? Imagine describing the sounds of a road crew during the month of August. What did it sound like?

This kind of developed detail allows the reader to experience whatever you are describing, moving you from the area of just telling. These are the details you need to flesh out your writing, and such detail will not always come to you while your mind is busy drafting. Some detail must be there beforehand, so make a sense list for your topic; it will help you gather detail.