Re-seeing the Past through Reflection and Writing

Revision is always something that I have both loved and loathed. As Cindy alluded to in her discussion of revision strategy, I was one of her junior students sitting in class looking at the list of possible revision activities. Because of those activities I came to appreciate the process. I enjoyed the time I could spend just thinking about my own writing and then rewriting. Though the further I got from high school, the further I got away from these techniques. It wasn't until I got into my own classroom that they started to come back as I tried to get students to see what revision (not editing) was. Today I started with a page of writing about my transition from the Social Studies classroom to the English classroom. I ended our revision session with 2 pages of writing.

I realized, through my revision, that my audience was seeing something more negative than intended. You see, my piece is personal and it is why I chose to leave my school. At the end of last year, I felt a lot of negativity and that needs to be seen to understand why I am where I am--but I don't want that negativity to define who I am now to the reader. I want my audience to see that I'm actually very excited about teaching at a new place and with a new subject and I feel like this transition is essential for me to stay in the education field. I was writing my paper in a linear fashion starting with where I was, which led me to feel like I was dwelling in negativity, so I decided to start with the conclusion--some backwards planning if you will. I need to see the positive ending before going back to talk about the journey to that ending.

The screen shot below shows where my thinking is going. I am writing a multi-genre piece, so the final ending will be the letter to students on the first day of class.

The reason I want to play with multi-genre is because I really think it is pushing me to think about things with different audiences and purposes in mind. It is helping me think about reconstructing the past and capturing the emotion that I felt in the last semester. I'm also thinking about the future that I want to construct and how my writing can help me do that.

On a slight side note (but not really), today I learned that my high school English teacher--Ms. Pillsbury, passed away yesterday. She was a really awesome lady who always viewed life with upmost optimism. She battled cancer for a long time but that battle never took her from teaching. During my senior year I had a lot of issues with anxiety and she always let me stay in her classroom during my lunch periods and just hang out. She spent a lot of time pushing me to be a better academic writer and to pay attention to detail. I appreciate her attitude and looking back I hope she knew how much I appreciated having her my senior year. As I think about the transition to the English classroom I want to think about what it means to connect with the written word, both as a writer and a reader. As I continue to draft my paper I want to think about her classroom.