Lamott’s Article:
While reading Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts” I related to this article so much. First drafts are always where I struggle the most because I often find myself trying to write a perfect first draft from the start and I often struggle a lot with that because I am focusing too much on perfecting my ideas as I go instead of just seeing where my ideas could flow to and what my ideas could potentially create. While writing our first draft for our first essay on metaphors in English 110 I took the same approach as Lamott described by “just start by getting something, anything written down on the paper.” During the first draft I recently just wrote I came into the paper having an idea on which points I wanted to write about by while writing I also came across several new ideas for my paper that I would have never came across if I didn’t just start typing. I feel like writing a “shitty first draft” was very beneficial. I find it to be very beneficial because when you go and peer review your paper with others, you aren’t so defensive about others advice towards your paper because you know it was just all of your ideas spilled out onto the paper. Nothing in this article offended me, I actually found it to be very reassuring that I am not the only one that just likes to word vomit all over paper during my first draft. Lamott gave me confidence that writing a “shitty first draft” can actually lead to a successful paper.
Revisiting My Peer Reviews:
I really enjoyed peer reviewing. During peer reviewing I got some very positive feedback from my peers and I also got some really great ideas on where I can make some changes. One of the positive feedbacks that I received from my peers was that they really enjoyed how I made real life connections to all of my main points and ideas in my essay. Some errors for improvement from my peers was that I need to separate my conclusion from my last point, I ended up just smushing my last idea into my conclusion and it made my paper read a little confusing. Something else that was mentioned for me to work on was that I use many tenses throughout my paper and I need to reread my essay and see which tense works for the message and flow of my article.
Strategy Plan:
My goals are
- Rewrite my thesis
- Fix my tense used throughout my essay
- Address the negatives of using metaphors as well to be able to show both sides
- Create stronger conclusion paragraphs to end each paragraph strong
- Add more quotes to tie in the authors more
- Addressing the importance of message of the essay
Steps:
The first step I plan to take to achieve these goals is printing out four copies of my essay and on each copy only focus on one goal, so for my first copy I will only work on restating my thesis and where would be the strongest place to add in my restated thesis. By only focusing on one goal for each copy of my paper will allow me to be focused on only one goal instead of getting distracted by my other goals. The second step I am going to take is revisiting my prompt question and making sure I am truly answering it throughout my essay. The next step that I am going to take is creating a new brain storming sheet since I have already come up with so many new ideas of my paper to include. Making a new brainstorming sheet will allow me to stay organized and flush out the ideas that I no longer want to connect with. The final step I am going to take is revise the articles, reread and annotate them one last time. Each time I read and annotate an article I start to understand more of the message that the author is trying to get across. By revisiting the articles it will allow me to connect my new ideas with the opinion of each author. Also maybe my opinion on each authors point of view has changed from then to now.
I think my biggest challenge will be trashing old ideas that don’t have as much background to them for newer ideas that have more evidence and support. The reason I feel that this will be the hardest step for me to take is because I often am afraid to just let go of some idea for a stronger one because I get nervous that the idea that I am getting go of will be stronger than the new idea. Another challenge for me will be taking about the negative side of metaphors because I do strongly believe that metaphors are important, but I think it is important for me to address the possibilities to the audience on how metaphors can be misunderstood. The last thing that I believe I might struggle with is addressing the importance of the overall message of my essay. I think it will be hard for me to show the audience that there is an important message in my essay because I often don’t have confidence in my work.
If I find that one of my goals is too much of a challenge for me to tackle on my own and I find that I need a little extra assistance what I plan to do is meet with our wonderful writing buddy Emmy. She was really helpful the last time I met with her, she helped me bounce ideas off of her for my introduction paragraph and I feel that sometimes I just need someone to bounce ideas off of for reassurance.
