Revising where would we be without it?

In an article written by Stanley Fish, In the article "What should College Teach?" in the article, Fish argues that High schools don't fully prepare Incoming College students for Writing in College. He strongly believes that they aren't equipped with the rights tools to write a proper sentence. As far stuff like grammar and goes. He says ''students should get to have their own variety and pattern of language''. He says that students are so unprepared for College writing that College Professor's have to reteach certain aspects all over again. Which is somewhere true, but mainly I think he's forgetting that it's just basic stuff like how to use grammar and writing in different ways, then we would have in high school.

I agree with Fish, to a certain degree. Yes as incoming freshmen in English 1109, who have never been to College before. I don't think we know how to properly write good sentences or papers for that matter. But I don't think he is giving students enough credit, by saying that what students learned in high school is completely useless. To me I think of writing as like a muscle in our body, the more we do it the better we get at it. That's why writing is so different from each stage of schooling. Each level of it is important. Think of it like lifting weights. You can't start lifting the most heavy weight in the room, you have to work your way up by building strength, by lifting smaller weights, then moving on to larger ones. High school is just one level below College. Personally I learned a lot about writing in High school, if gave me common grounds and things to work off of when I first started writing in College. If I didn't have those ideas or experience from high school at that level. I would be in trouble.

 

 When it comes to what is the most important thing to teach in College Writing, there are many
things. Revision has to one of them. I think Revision is the one of the most important parts of writing in general. In my opinion it's also one of the easiest, things to do. Because you already have the hard stuff out of the way, which is a lot research and of course writing. What's great about revision is all you have to do is take the stuff you have already written and just making a few small changes on it.

it all starts with one idea.

I figured this out, when I observed a student needing help with their paper, in the Writers Studio on the Ohio state Newark campus. When I observed a tutor help a student, the Student was worried that his paper didn't make sense, or wasn't good. The tutor looked over it, and the student had actually written a good paper, it just needed a few changes to make it better.  The tutor did something even more interesting that I personally had never seen before. The tutor printed out a copy of the students paper, and made some edits on the copy of where she thought spelling was off, or a sentence didn't make sense. The Tutor made all the edits on the copy, and not on the actual document. So the student could clearly see where they needed to fix some things. Really just fixing a few small
mistakes was the only problem the student had. For the most part you generally get the nail on the wall with the first draft of where you want to end up. It just needs polished to shine brighter. I started to notice that Revision was a major part of writing, because when I had to write another paper for another class, the Teacher told me, I got a bad grade on the paper, but My grade could have been better if I had reread over the paper a few times, because some of the sentences didn't make any sense.

I did some more research on the topic as the year went on. Interviewed the tutor, and asked why they thought printing it out, really helped. They Said, "It really helps them see where things need fixed, also I just give them so ideas of how to fix them, so in case they come up with better ideas later on of how to fix it, then they can use those instead of mine. Because generally they will find better ideas, then what I come up with, which is good, because it's not my paper. Or my work. I'm just here to push them in the right direction." I was also given the chance to email a professor outside of school named Brendon Lee, a former College professor at Columbia College in Chicago. He got a masters in English. I asked him if people missed anything in Revision or were doing it wrong, his response surprised me at first. "I'm not sure how to answer that. Many of my students don't revise. They want to get in and get out." is what he said. Which is true the more I think about it, could be one reason why our papers in High school, and sometimes now aren't so good. it could be why it lead Fish to
think that Students aren't prepared for College. Revision is important it's double checking to make sure everything is good, and makes sense. it's a way of organizing. I asked professor Brendon why revision is important  he said. "Revision is critical to the writing process because it allows you to get your words / ideas in the exact format you would like them to be in, which is something we can't do in normal speech. You can catch grammar errors, make sure you use apt evidence to support claims, etc." he also added "It's important to think of writing as a process. The more drafts, the better it'll likely be." I have to say learning from my own experience that writing multiple drafts and really looking at it again helps a ton, when writing. I have noticed that I didn't like the way I worded something. Once I read my final draft compared to my first, they were completely different, and my final was way better than my draft.


"Just double checking!"

I do agree with Fish, that knowing how to write a proper sentence and using English as a language to it's full potential is important thing to teach in College. If you can't write a proper sentence with the right grammar, then you paper will fall apart. But I don't think it's the only thing that should be taught in College. There are many important things that you have to teach students in College writing. I think Revision is one of them. It can literally change a C- paper into an A+ paper with just a few small changes. It really can make a difference. In my experience of writing in College so far, it's taking writing in general to a whole new level. It's like taking everything I have learned from the past few years of my life and testing their limits, and pushing them further than I could have expected. I may not have been fully prepared for College writing like fish thinks, but when you really think about it. How can you really be prepared for anything. Life has it's ways of throwing punches at you. The only thing you can do about it is keep on your feet, and do the best that can. I believe that's what we all are doing.