While reading Anne Lamott’s Shitty First Drafts, I realized that I have never looked at the writing process the way she does. I usually try my best to make my first draft a good base to begin my essay with. In the past, my teachers have graded my rough draft as well as my final draft; some teachers even made the first draft worth as much as the final draft. It is incredibly overwhelming to feel as if you have one shot at writing something, so you need to make it perfect. I wish that my teachers have looked at writing the way Lamott does, “The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and you can shape it later”. I feel that if I viewed my writing that way, it would be much easier to get all of my ideas down and realize what I want to include in my essay and what should be locked up in a box and hidden from daylight.
Lamott’s excerpt from the book not only reads well, but is informative as well as entertaining. The fact that she has been writing for so long and still writes “shitty first drafts” is a little comforting. Lately, I have been looking at writers’ styles and attempting to figure out what it is that makes their work so readable. All I have figured out so far is that good writers incorporate their own personality into their writing. From Lamott’s piece you can tell that she has a good sense of humor as well as years of experience. She seems incredibly knowledgeable about writing but at the same time she is able to give us a glimmer of hope and claim that her work process begins the same way as anyone else’s.
Wow I completely understand where you are coming from. This is actually another reason why I never enjoyed writing first drafts. I don’t think they should be graded honestly. As Lamott stated, I feel that in first drafts one should just be getting their creative juices flowing and focused on getting ideas on paper. One shouldn’t be perfecting their ideas, that can be saved for upcoming drafts.
I definitely agree, that if first drafts were graded, then the writer would certainly treat the rough draft as a piece close to perfection. However, when you approach the first drafts this way, it makes the whole process of writing an essay much less enjoyable. It’s important to know your ideas and points before actually synthesizing them. If you try to hard to make a well-written first draft you can spread yourself too thin. Instead of making a few strong arguments, you make many weak ones.
We’ve all been through it, having to hand in a so called “first draft” which makes up over 50% of your grade. Sometimes it just baffles me how this would make sense to anyone. The point of first drafts as Lamott clearly pointed out was to for us to articulate our ideas and thoughts on paper. Teachers should only use first drafts to make sure the students are headed in the correct direction and are making sense.
I loved reading this post as it was such a relief to know so many other people could relate to the struggle when writing a graded first draft. In the past it was so stressful to be pressured to writing something that shouldn’t be expected to be perfected on the first try. Luckily my English teacher last term did not grade first drafts though he did require to send them to him, and I felt comfortable sending him a first draft that had just a few scraps of my ideas or points I wanted to say. There really is such a big difference when you don’t have to worry about high expectations and the pressure is off to get a good grade on a draft, because it makes it so much easier to just focus on your thoughts and create something you can later build off of and improve on.