I'll do it my way

by Stephanie Dix

I thought the structure of this article was a nice change of pace. I wasn't shocked with the key finding of the article that young writers, like expert writers, work in different ways. It was still nice to read the three profiles and relate characteristics of these students to other students that I have watched in their own writing process.

I also liked that the distinction was made between poetic and transactional writing process for these students. Working with students, I have noticed that they are much more comfortable revising their poetic writing. I think it is because they are so much more familiar with their subject. They also have a stronger sense of ownership. Often, the transactional writing done in my class is on an assigned topic or at least genre, but the poetic writing usually features student choice. I think that the amount of choice and ownership that students feel that they have in a piece directly correlates to the amount of time and effort that they will put into revising that piece. I also think that there is a relationship between ownership and the depth at which a student will revise.