I Composed About Composing Behaviors
Even when we got a Super Nintendo, and sold the original Nintendo to some lady at a Flea Market, my older brother continued to use the index and middle finger of his hand instead of his thumb to press the X, Y, A, and B buttons. I was the normal kid that used the thumbs on both hands: left hand’s thumb for directional pad and right hand’s thumb for buttons.
When it was time to include our younger brother in games like Super Mario Kart, we both taught him how to play. My older brother would get mad when he’d see him using my technique, and I’d get mad when he wasn’t using both of his thumbs as I and the Lord God intended.
After reading about Composition Behaviors, I’ve come to understand that my older brother’s dumb technique may have had some value. Like the chapter says, “teachers tend to teach their own composing behaviors in the classroom and are thus in danger… of imposing their… approaches on students” (68). If it weren’t for our close-minded and ignorant attempts at teaching our younger brother the importance of Star Fox, he may have grown up to be ambidextrous or the champion of Halo. We didn’t understand “the pedagogical implications of dealing with individual differences” (56).
I’ll drop the goofy allegorical metaphor, and will resort to similes, but the point remains the same: students are like snowflakes. We tend to think that one way is better than the other, and it makes logical sense to think “that revision can improve writing” (52). However, “studies of revision do not provide the conclusive picture that we need in order to assert that we should continue coaxing our students into writing multiple drafts” (53). If that quote doesn’t convince you, another “study demonstrated that the most extensively revised papers ‘received a range of quality ratings from the top to the bottom of the scale’” (53). This shows that “the amount of redrafting often bears little relation to the overall quality of completed texts” (53). Another study showed that “more extensive use of pre-text doesn’t automatically lead to better written text” (54).
I initially decided that I was a one-drafter. After a few pages I was then convinced that I was a multi-drafter. After finishing the reading and starting on this writing assignment, which you are now reading, I have decided that I am a hybrid. I’m willing to bet that most writers are hybrids. The extremes of one-drafters and multi-drafters have set characteristics, but I have some characteristics of both.
Like a one-drafter, I “need to clarify [my] thinking prior to beginning to write” (59). I have to “have a focus and organization in mind” (59). Are my thoughts as highly organized as the extreme example of one-drafters? No. I am sometimes even like a multi-drafter who likes to start with “‘something small that can grow and grow’” (59). However, I can’t be like Pam the multi-drafter: “Pam too expressed her resistance to knowing her topic and direction beforehand in terms of how boring it would be” (59).
When looking at the limiting options vs. open-ended exploring portion of the list of differences between the extremes, I did the same thing. I kept finding that I shared attributes with both sides. “The one-drafters move quickly to decisions while composing” (63), and I do as well. Sometimes. Other times I worry and fret and pace around the room whilst I am deciding on whether I should use “whilst” or “while,” for example.
One-drafters and multi-drafters are starting to remind me of astrological signs of the Zodiac. Everyone shares at least one trait with a Sagittarius. I’m even like at least one of the generalizations of a Libra every now and then. However, no one ever wholly matches the description of their assigned crab or bull or scorpion or siamese twin; no one can say they don’t relate with a different sign either.
The main thing I’ve learned from this is that we cannot force these snowflakes into molds. Well, we could, but within the molds the pressure would increase, and therefore so would the temperature – this I learned in a physical science class – and the snowflakes would then melt. This melting would cause the beauty of each snowflake to be lost. The differences would be gone, and we’d be left with boring water. Instead, we need to understand that students deserve to be shown multiple ways of writing.
