Revisions

Kelly wrote:


If every paper they ever write feels like it has to be a finished draft, and yet I define finished draft as writing as one or two drafts, what kind of quality writing I am getting from them?


While we may not always like their choices, if we are to respect their agency, we need to practice framing student writing in terms of choices.  If, for example, a student who is capable of writing an A paper wants to settle for a C paper because she has volleyball practice tonight and isn't interested in doing another draft, we need to step back and remember that we can't make their choices for them.  Otherwise, they lose ownership of their writing.  We can't make them care about particular assignments, but we can try to make them care about their ability to write.