Let's swing, baby!

Today I was surfing Pinterest for some graphics on the process of writing.  

All I found were lists.

Don’t get me wrong, the lists had appropriate components, and some were lovely. But they were lists, and the lists included each element in its proper place and in a specific order.

Fifteen years ago when I was just learning to use computers and finishing my master’s work, a class assignment required me to create a visual that would represent some aspect of writing.   After spending an intense five weeks in class, it seemed to me that computers had changed the linear way I was used to writing.  I realized that when I composed on a computer, I no longer brainstormed and then drafted and then revised and then proofread and then published. Instead, I swung back and forth between all the “steps” in the process as I rethought and rephrased, edited and proofread, sometimes multiple times and in alternating ways. With the freedom of word processing, I could copy and paste, delete and replace as I wrote. I didn’t let the limitations of having to type another draft dissuade me from improving.  Neither did anyone else.

That notion of swinging got me thinking about my assignment.

With my very limited computer graphics skills, I created several lines and dragged them around to draw a stick figure on a swing.  Underneath the person in scattered text boxes were the former steps in process writing. It was pretty crude, but it was profound.   This simple graphic illustrated how “process writing” really didn’t even exist in the computer age. Instead, writers use a kind of fluid writing that swings back and forth between those traditional elements before the final product is complete.

Today, a common gripe I hear among teachers is that their students hate to revise.  But maybe if we acknowledged that as writers today we revise as we draft, they might have less distaste for it. 

As evidence of “drafting,” maybe students should explain their processes in teacher/student conferences, instead of having to submit artificial drafts to prove that they have invested thought and time in revising.  They just might emerge with better work... and a better attitude about revision and the true nature of writing. 

How about modeling that fluid writing process for your students?  Show them how you compose, rethink your phrasing or content, go back to edit or proofread, and then continue composing.

Then ditch the “Process Writing” charts and use your own metaphor that shows that writing is a journey, a winding path that sometimes switches back on itself, or a pendulum on a clock that swings as it ticks off its progress.  

Or challenge your students to invent their own metaphor for fluid writing.  

Whatever we do, let’s finally move past writing as a linear model.   

Let’s swing, baby!