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Danielle Rogers
Ms. Sanford
Eng 100-11
Blog #6: Sommers’ “Between the Drafts”
Sommers’ “Between the Drafts”
It’s funny how I was taught throughout school to write the “academic” way as Sommers
states in her journal entry, “Between the Drafts,” “Or, to use the metaphor of revision, I was
stuck in a way of seeing: reproducing the thoughts of others, using them as my guides …post-
structuralist vocabulary give authority to my text” (Para. 2, pg 135). Not being able to express
how I felt from constructing different papers using the “Everyteacher” methods, where they give
me a specific topic to write a paper on made me feel very underpowered. With this “authority”
from the teacher, I grew to accept this way of writing to be the best way coming up. At some
point I grew out of the “academic” way of writing, and begin taking control of my own
“authority” and how I wrote.
This moment of truth occurred when I was a sophomore in college. In English 102, I was
giving an assignment where I had to construct a research paper on a topic of my own choose,
“Causes of youth joining gangs.” But of course, there where specific guidelines I had to follow.
Excited about being able to construct a paper I choose, at this time I felt in charged and
empowered. Now here is my chance to express my own thoughts and feeling inside my research
paper.
Before I started constructing my research paper, I began to think of some youth I knew
who had joined the gang.
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At first, the writing was going very well, until I remembered that I had to answers some
questions that my professor had instructed me to answer. Going back trying to answer those
questions had made me feel very disconnected from my writings, because at this point I am now
losing power in my own essay. I was losing power because again I was now writing in some one
else voice. Trying to combine my own personal experiences with another person resulted in me
being giving a grade of a “B-.”
I made the right choose to give my own thoughts and personal experiences, because I felt
that it would bring my paper to life and maybe another person can relate to it. But being giving a
guideline to follow I feel that I messed up, because I erased most of my personal experiences to
make sure I answered most of the required questions. With not a lot of my own examples and
relying on different sources to much, that’s why I was giving the grade I’ve received.
Next time I would keep my own personal experiences inside my research paper, because
being able to express and give some of my own personal experiences inside my paper helps me
to gain and use my “authentic” voice more.
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