Gibson 1 Elicia Gibson Cover Letter 04-27-2013

Dear Reader: This is my newly updated version of my Project 1 Part 2. I decided to take my original paper and completely flip it the other way. I argued how first drafts are a necessary step in the writing process because you can revise your work easier, plan efficiently, and have the ability to apply more ideas later. This was a better topic due to the fact that it was better supported by scholarly evidence and also I believed it in more than I did in the beginning of the year. I was not happy with my original paper once I read it. It lacked supporting evidence and my argument was weak. It was too opinionated and was missing substance. With this new paper, it better conveyed my ideas and had much more outside support. I added more information from outside authors, which in turn made for a stronger argument. I tried to venture away from this being too much of an opinion piece like it was the first time I wrote this. I sounded whiny before which wasnt professional and took away from my paper. I cut that out of this project and made it more professional sounding. I still included my own views on things but didnt make that the entire paper. Finding this new topic easier to talk about as well made the paper flow more easily. Im happy with the changes I made. I feel my paper is stronger and better put together. Elicia Gibson

Gibson 2 Elicia Gibson 04-27-2013 Mrs. Venn Project 1 Part 2 Revised The Paradox: Writing About my Writing (Revised) In every day life, we analyze things, be it other people, the quality of food, how some people talk, how we feel about that advertisement, and what we deem necessary or not. I can ultimately say that I have never analyzed how someone has written, let alone my own writing process. I learned a little more about myself and how I go about planning, revising, editing, and evaluating my work. I learned what works for me and what doesnt. I learned that as easy as it is to just plow through a writing and turn it in, its better to create multiple drafts. The benefits of a draft are that you can revise your work easier, plan efficiently, and have the abilities to apply more ideas later. I conducted my research by creating a video of myself writing my paper. I talked during the time about what I added, took away, revised, and edited. I talked about my topic, how I thought it would pertain, what I was doing during that time. I wrote my paper in about two hours sitting at Brennans Coffee Shop eating a bagel and drinking a large hot chocolate. I sat at a high top table and let my legs swing around and once got up for another bagel. Once I started, I slammed out this paper. I knew exactly what I wanted and needed to say, how I was going to say it, and how I wanted to wrap it all up. I motivated myself by listening to my favorite choir composer, Eric Whitacre, whose music has always inspired many thoughts in my head. I finished my paper, packed up my stuff, and then left for class. My paper, to me, seemed to be a very good piece of work. I

Gibson 3 was proud of what I had accomplished in my writing and eventually, after only about 10 minutes of a read over and a meeting with my teacher, turned it in and that was that. I got good feedback and said I had met all the requirements set by my professor in the project, but later reading it, I felt like it wasnt my best work. My paper lacked substance. It covered all the requirements set by the teacher but it had no major details. The formatting was erratic and hard to follow. The main purpose was to state why someone was a literacy sponsor to me and how he or she is a sponsor. I barely even touched upon what a literary sponsor was let alone how Claire fulfilled the purpose. A draft could have corrected this and made my argument so much better, stronger, and easier to understand. Anne Lamott and Carol Berkenkotter both agree on the fact that draft writing is an important, if not invaluable, step in the writing process. During Carol Berkenkotters study on Donald Murrays writing process, she found out that he spent most of his time planning his writing by doing drafts (Berkenkotter 222). Anne Lamott in her article Shitty First Drafts, she claims drafts to be a way to get all the ideas out on to paper so they can later be organized to your benefit (Lamott 303). Drafts help you revise your work easier. You take the first draft and find all the sentences that did not make sense, all of the grammatical errors, all the mistakes, and fix them. Anne Lamott states that, [T]he first draft is the down draftyou just get it down. The second draft is the up draftyou fix it up [T]he third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth to see if its loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy. (Lamott 303)

Gibson 4 If a person left your paper at only your first draft, they miss out on all the revision they could have done and completed. Had a second draft been written, the sentence Up for a challenge on both her and my parts, we shook hands as the teacher and the pupil (Gibson) could have been changed to something like With her and I both ready for a challenge, we took hands as teacher and pupil. The sentence flows better, sounds better, and makes more sense. Drafts allow for revisions of multiple things within a paper. A draft can help a person plan more efficiently on what they are going to place in their paper. In the first draft one could have wrote out what one believed to be important in the paper, no matter how random the information comes out to be. Once all the information is out it can be organized in a way to flow better. When I read over my paper now, I feel as though some one my paragraphs contained information that didnt necessarily need to be in the paper. Those particular parts could confuse the reader and make it difficult to understand where I was going with this paper or what I was trying to say. Had another draft or multiple drafts been written, I could have placed those particular things in better order or just have taken those bits out completely. If only one draft is completed, the opportunity to plan the paper out is mostly missed out upon. A draft also allows for things to be added to your paper that could have been forgotten while originally writing the first paper. Anne Lamott states that when writing the second draft she sometimes finds a new lead somewhere (Lamott 303). In doing her second draft, she found a whole new spin to go off of, making a better article and a better argument if she chose to. If she just chose to use her first draft, she probably would not have realized the new lead she could have spun off of.

Gibson 5 If I had taken the time to write at least a second draft, I could have possibly added more on the fact of how Claire is my literacy sponsor, which was the main reason of writing my paper. I then would have focused on how she fit Deborah Brandts characteristics of a literacy sponsor. I only give a brief statement on how Claire was my sponsor for music. This was so brief that it really did not make any sense and needed more information added in order to directly convey my message to the audience. Reading it over again, I was even confused by what I was trying to say. While drafts take time away from doing other things, they are a very important step in the writing process and should not be missed out upon. Not even the greatest of writers skip out on doing a draft. Great writing takes multiple drafts. Drafts help to revise work easier, plan efficiently, and have the ability to apply more ideas later. I regret skipping other drafts when writing my original paper because of the fact that I missed out on turning it into something really well written. It had all the potential for a great paper but in all sense, it was just the first draft. Next time I will take my own advice by skipping out on time with friends and instead spend my time hanging out with my paper, writing drafts.

Gibson 6 Works Cited Berkenkotter, Carol. Decisions and Revisions: The Planning Strategies of a Publishing Writer. College Compositions and Communications 34.2 (1983): 156-69. Print. Brandt, Deborah. "Sponsors of Literacy." College Composition and Communication 49.2 (1998): 165-85. Rpt. in Writing About Writing. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011. 331-50. Print. Gibson, Elicia. Hey There Mickey. Lamott, Anne. Shitty First Drafts. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Anchor, 1994. 21-27. Print.