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Final Self-Commentary
As we have noted before,
successful writers do not simply produce texts out of thin air as if by
magic; they go through a more or less specific process, moving step by
step towards a finished document. As you probably know by now, good writing
involves moving from an initial assessment of the writing task to a series
of drafts, some of which are shared with collaborators.
Once the project
is complete, successful writers spend at least some time reflecting on
their writing, and on articulating what they feel are both their accomplishments
and their ongoing problems. Finally, successful writers use these reflections
to reformulate their methods for the next writing task.
In this sense the writing process is
best thought of as a kind of circle or spiral rather than a straight line;
the last stage of any writing process, your self-reflections, are in effect
the first stage of your next writing task or assignment. This assignment
will formalize this last/first step by using a guided “self-commentary”
at the end of your extended writing process. When you answer the
questions below, refer to anything you have written over the semester,
from homework to rough and finished drafts to peer critiques. NOTE!
the first five steps are items you should fill out on your own, but NOT
post to your web site in that form; the final draft that you link to your
assignment index should be a polished synthesis (as described in
the sixth step) of notes you took in response to the first five steps.
This
self-commentary must be published and linked to your assignment index by
Monday, December 15, at 5 p.m.; final fine-tuning of your web site is also
due at this time.
Step One: summarize your assignments
Begin by going back
to the original assignments since the last self-commentary--they’re on
the web site's "handouts"
page if you a copy of any of them--and write a brief summary of what you
believe to be their overall purposes and goals. What writing tasks have
you been asked to complete, and what, in your view, were their main aims?
(this is not yet the point at which you should do any evaluation; simply
summarize succinctly.)
Step Two: summarize
your texts
Next write a two- to four-sentence summary
of the texts you have written in response to assignments since the last
self-commentary. Which of the specific purposes and goals do you feel you
have accomplished this semester? (Again, this is not yet the time to do
any evaluation; simply summarize succinctly.)
Step Three: compare the assignments
to your texts
Once you have completed
Steps One and Two, write a summary describing how well you feel your texts
met the main purposes and goals of the assignments you have been given
this semester (this should be about a paragraph in all). Finish off
with some evaluative remarks on what you feel you did well, what you feel
you did not do well, and what you therefore feel your goals for repeated
improvement and success ought to be for future writing projects.
Step Four: review your writing
process
Begin by describing
your own writing process as honestly as you can. In particular, as
you answer these questions, address them in terms of any changes you
have noticed this semester in the way you do these different stages of
the writing process. Some of the questions you might ask and then answer
include:
-
How do I begin a writing assignment? Do
I start relatively early in the time frame given for completing a writing
task, or relatively late?
-
Do I go through several early drafts, or
do I simply work on most of them once and then turn them in?
-
What kinds of editing methods do I practice
(for example, checking for wordiness, spelling, organization, unnecessary
use of passive voice)?
In this section you can also include any
comments you might have regarding your own process of learning the writing
technology included in this course. Finally, finish with a few sentences
outlining what you feel are your strengths and weaknesses in the writing
process, and what you therefore feel ought to be your goals for future
writing projects.
Step Five: review grammar
and mechanics
Review selected samples of your texts
to see if you can locate sentences that are unnecessarily passive, fragmentary,
grammatically inaccurate, indirect, and so on. Identify and write down
two or three sentences that have these problems; rewrite these sentences
to illustrate how you would rewrite them. For each original/revised sentence
pair, provide an explanation for the revisions you make. (If you feel that
you cannot find any grammatical problems of this sort, pick three especially
long sentences and practice revising them in a more succinct way. Remember,
you must still provide some explanation for the choices you made in your
revised sentences.) Finally, compare some of your writing from early in
the semester to some of your most recent writing--do you see particular
improvements? Incorporate discussion of at least one of these
examples into the document you finally produce for Step Six below.
Step Six: put it all
together
In effect, you now have enough material
to produce between 400-700 words of succinct self-commentary on your writing
and your writing process--do so in two new paragraphs that synthesize
what you wrote for the above steps (do not merely write five or six
paragraphs, one in response to each of these steps). Decide how you will
organize this material. What do you want to emphasize? What answers
that you came up with in response to the five steps above do you think
will most help your writing practices if you try to keep them in mind?