Thlog 1

            When I signed up for this class I was initially a little nervous about a college level academic writing class. I love English and I enjoy writing but I assumed that the academic part meant that the class would lack creativity. I have a bad track record when it comes to serious writing drained of all creativity and freedom.

After meeting Zack and sitting through the first class I realized that there was no need to worry. I was even more pleasantly surprised when we read what Peter Elbow had written about the two different ways to think when writing. What Elbow wrote is something I can relate to. In school I was never the type of student who would brainstorm and write down their essay ideas before writing. When I had teachers who made us outline our essays before writing them I always ended up with less material to write about and I felt like I was trapped in some sort of box that I was unable to write myself out of. The way Elbow described the limitations of only second order thinking when writing was therefore something I understood well.

I have always just jumped into my writing with an open mind and a blank screen. This was clearly a first order thinking way of writing. Until last week I had never thought much about my way of writing. I learned that jumping into my writing is actually a good thing so long as I take some time afterwards to use my second order thinking to revise.

Revising is a very weak point in my writing process. Sometimes even reading over my writing is an arduous task for me. For college level writing I know I am going to need to step my revision game up a bit in order to receive the grades that I am satisfied with. So with that being said, this week I learned that revision is something I can do to improve my writing and I will start practicing with this very thlog.