Monthly Archives: September 2019

So writing is a big part of school and most of the times i have trouble with the topics. It takes me a long time to brainstorm my ideas and the outline of the paper in my head. Over time I’ve realized that my best work comes out under pressure. Whenever I think about the ideas I have for the topic I always end up changing it non stop. While under pressure I stick with 1 idea and everything starts flooding in for the paper. I always review my work at the last minute for mistakes, I try not to do that but its a habit. My first drafts are always really bad and need revision. I can always fix a paper but not a house once its built which is what George was talking about.

After reading both perspectives on writing the first draft, I reflect the most to George Dila’s idea on revising the first draft as many times as I can. I think it is important to revise your paper as you are writing it because you are making it better and you are saving yourself time. For example, if you just write your paper and don’t revise it as you are doing it then you will have to start over again and that’s wasting time. I also see the point in Lamott strategy but I personally agree more with Dila’s, I’m trying to make first draft as good as it can be so when I’m working on my second one it can be better.

Personally when I  have to write an essay as an assignment for school, I don’t hate it. My best work is done when I’m brainstorming my ideas by just typing them on a word document. That way, I don’t forget my thoughts and just go with the flow. After my writing is a decent length, I go back and fix my grammatical errors, better my vocabulary, and make sure my sentences are CLEAR. As long as my writing is clear to the audience, I’m good to go!

 George Dila ’s perspective on writing  in” RETHINKING THE SHITTY FIRST DRAFT” clearly reflects my approach to writing because he knows the importance of a first draft , he keeps on revising as he develops his first draft writing and he doesn’t refer to the beginning process as shitty.There are many times, I actually do like writing because that’s the way I feel like I can express my ideas more.So I believe that first drafts should be done carefully because it gives me an idea of how I should continue the rest of the draft.The first draft should have as much effort to start with something strong and end with something much stronger. The writing method Dila uses is the one I follow rather than Lamott’s because it works for me more when writing papers.

My approach to writing is much like how George Dila described it in “RETHINKING THE SHITTY FIRST DRAFT”. Personally, when I have to start a paper, it takes me a good minute to figure out how to start it because it effects the rest of the writing that is to come and I won’t continue writing unless I have it figured out. After I get past the first stage, I continue writing while at the same time edit as I go along. Writing this way may be time consuming but I’ve always found it to be easier for me since I’m relieving a lot of the work now than leaving it for the end. I never knew how to explain this to people when they’d asked me why I would stress out so much for a first draft, but using Dila’s metaphor, why would you build a house but leave all the mistakes to fix for the end? “The builder would end up with a pretty shitty house; so shitty it would probably be easier to tear it down and start over, maybe a little more carefully the next time.” With Anne Lamott’s approach to writing, I wouldn’t be as good a writer. Her method of just pouring out your writing and letting it go all over the place is too disorganized and I feel like I wouldn’t pay as much attention to detail as I would to Dila’s approach to writing.

I would say my writing style is like the writer of Shitty first draft. When writing my draft i write whatever comes to my mind and I go back and fix it later. My first draft tends to have a lot of errors and cross outs. I believe it would all fall into place and end up working out in the end the author put it perfectly when she said she just trust the process. Im happy to find their is an author out there with the same logic as me of writing up drafts .

I see myself siding with George Dila’s perspective more than Anne Lamotts on writing a first draft. Something that George said was how he was not able to write a bad first draft, based on what I raid he sees that there needs to a strong foundation to build off on and not just head into working without knowing how’ll you’ll put everything together. I relate to George’s strategy when it comes to writing that first draft and that was to edit while gong on so that way everything becomes easily understandable, doing this allows a person to go back to what they wrote in the first draft and being able to tweak it a bit. I completely see Ms. Lamotts version of writing the first draft of being spontaneous to just write whatever down so that way when you come back to editing you come back to pick on something that you liked before and just expand on it more so it becomes something big, its effective but it’s something I don’t do very often. Only when it comes to writing a fictional piece it becomes very useful.

       The author of “Shitty First Drafts”, Anne Lamott, most clearly reflects my approach to writing. Lamott says first drafts are meant to be shitty because they are the writing pieces that get us to the final piece we want. Without the shitty first draft you can’t get to the final piece that you are confident in handing in. When I am given a writing assignment, for the most part I have a lot of ideas about what I want to write about. I am someone who like to write down my idea right away because I don’t want to lose it. I don’t worry about how it looks because I go back at the end and revise that. Unlike the other author, George Dila, I don’t like to be correct the first time I am writing a piece. I feel like that limits my creativity and I become so caught up on being perfect the first time around. The first draft for me is where I have the most freedom to just write, it is the foundation even if it is not a strong one. The drafts after that are when I start to “perfect” my writing not the first one. Ultimately, my approach to writing is to get my ideas on paper, even if they aren’t the best ideas I can always go back and change them.

There are a lot of things I care about but at the moment due to a recent movie I watched, I care about healthcare. Healthcare is important because accidents occurred and you don’t know what can happen today or tomorrow. There are some people who don’t have health insurance so if they get sick or injured they might not get the help they need because there’s no money and their situation can get worse. Healthcare also protects you from high medical cost. For example, if you have a serious accident that may require a surgery a health insurance can help you cover the surgery and you won’t have to deal with medical bills that can traumatize you. Also, your health insurance can cover the amount of days you are in a hospital. Staying in a hospital under the surveillance of doctors is expensive so you want to save money that can be useful for recovery. Healthcare is also important because you improve your health by going to a doctor. You can go see an eye doctor, a dentist,or get vaccines. With a health insurance you are healthy. Children need health insurance the most since they are growing up they need to make sure that they are healthy so they won’t miss school and they won’t get others sick. Having a health insurance gives people a longer life and it allows people to live a productive life. If you are healthy, you can do various things like being able to work so you can make a living. Therefore, I care about health care because I need to make sure my body is fine and with a health insurance I can see a doctor if i’m not feeling well. A health insurance also helps me save money and live a better life. Everyone should have a health insurance no matter their situation. Everyone deserves to have and live a healthy life.

Giselle Gutierrez

Ever since I was little I never wanted to work hard, I never wanted to try, I always would try to find an easy way out. I was like this all throughout elementary school, middle school, and the first three years of High School. All this changed my senior year and it was all because of one thing, wrestling. I started wrestling junior year, and that year I was demolished,  it was the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to me. Every match I played I lost all of them, what was worse was that these matches were in a tournament where around 200 people are watching you. I couldn’t handle the embarrassment so I left the team after a month. However, even after quitting I still couldn’t get over the losses, I would always think about how embarrassing it was, but this embarrassment turned into motivation. I was so embarrassed that I wanted to get good at it and make a point to everyone. So I started working out I wanted to be prepared for next year and I thought if I packed muscle I would be a better wrestler. A year passed and the wrestling season came back around, I was still the same lazy kid but this time I was motivated. After the start of the season, I just focused on wrestling and nothing else, I would go all out in practice every day I would never miss any practice. At one point I would wake up around 5 in the morning, go for a 3-mile run then do 200 push-ups and 100 situps then go to school. After school, I would have practice until 6:30 then after my practice I would go home and run another 3-miles, 200 push-ups, and 200 sit-ups. But all the hard work was worth it because I was able to place 4th in the city. What suprissed me was that my academic was getting better as well after I started working hard for wrestling it made me work hard at other things too, it was a domino effect. In conclusion, wrestling saved my life.