Process? or Product?

As some of you who already read my last blog promt about "voice" might notice, my process is insanely complicated, which doesn't always mean "well-organized." To answer the question "how do you write?,"I do outline what I want to say on a piece of paper as much possibly detailed as it could be; I divided into several blocks for introduction, body, and conclusion, and with one deep breath, I start to fill those blanks out. Sometimes, I get lost in the middle while thinking if this idea is strong enough to support that idea or if that one is overlapping the other one. When I feel the outline is specific and supportive enough, I start to type with my laptop. I don't know why, but I prefer working with my own laptop to working with the desktop in my office. Writing following the outline, I go back a lot and try to see if I miss or skip something or if I use certain sentence structure repetitively. This makes my work delayed so much more than I always plan beforehand. I know I shouldn't do that, but honestly I'm still doing that(even now!). Other than that, I think my process is similar to others. Finishing up the writing, I move on to proofreading and editing. Then, work is done.



I'm not sure if I say this here, but I think myself as an unskilled writer. I'm even confused at the definition of what is skilled or unskilled writer, but when I read about the process of unskilled writer in the previous essay, I was able to be sympathetic to the process of whoever it was. It doesn't mean I hate writing(I used to hate, but I don't any more). So, I could pretty much assume how they feel when they write and what they think about their works. Especially, I was surprised at some of the commonalities they have in writing such as they don't like to express themselves out in the writing since I felt the same way before, or maybe I do somewhat even now.

When thinking of the experience, with my hand not really moved for the next sentence, my head full of the nameless ideas, and my heart beating trillions times a minute, it's not that happy to be "critic" grading kids' assignments. Some of them might not even care writing, and some of them might be born with brilliant talents making impeccable stories. Still, there are students short of breath, biting finger nails whenever they grab pens to write something and try to find "the word." They might spend days and nights to figure that out and get close to the writing that sounds fabulous enough to say "I'm done!." However, it doesn't necessarily guarantee that they will have "A"s since it is too difficult to evaluate papers considering how much they devoted to this work or how well a student follows the thinking process. After all, it's all about the product; all we see is a piece of paper and letters. My question is, how can we evaluate individual efforts and process?

One of the approaches that I came up with is to really "know" the students. As doctors cannot cure the patients if they don't know what their patients' symtoms are, if you don't know their expectations and needs, there is no way we can help them to get better. Therefore, I think we need more intense composition class in terms of the relationship between students and teachers. Once you get to really know your students, what they are weak at, or how their processes are, I think it will definitely make it easier to consider the process. On the other hand, it could also be controversial when it comes to the fairness. Anomousity might prevent unjust assessment and help fair evaluation, but it shouldn't do harm on the very essence of what they need: consistent attention and constant value on what they work through.