Writing abot writing... My drafting process of SATF

Erin Ogilvy

What are the major content/critical thinking/writing issues that you were confronted with on this draft?
• I could not figure out how to incorporate quotes into the paper without turning the essay from exploratory to a regular lit analysis paper
• I don’t think I accomplished the task of finding a major point, but instead almost ended with a thesis?
• The first page or so of the essay went well and I was able to explore what family is to me, but then I think it all went downhill when I tried to assess the Compsons. My one focused topic that I was exploring seems to split into absolute chaos when I attempt to analyze the Compsons.
How well do you understand the content/substance of what you are writing about?
• My understanding of family is strong. I think my only problem with writing about family is the fact that there are so many various topics to possibly explore. My first draft had too many ideas, and when I tried to narrow it down in this second draft, I think I still strayed too much from one central issue.
• My understanding of The Sound and the Fury is very strong. Although I read the book over a month ago, through class discussions I have figured out the main themes and expanded how I originally perceived the characters when I read the book on my own.
What was your plan or strategy that you used to address these issues for this draft? Was this plan similar to the plans you have used in the past? How did you go from blank page to finished copy? How, and why, did you know those steps would work?
• I reread my paper twice before I started to rewrite and tried to pick one main theme to explore when I started writing again. Then, I read my paper out loud until I found a place in my first draft where my new theme started to deviate from what I now wanted to write. I usually read my papers out loud because I don’t always see that things don’t make sense or are unclear unless I hear them and physically have to pause because it doesn’t sound right when I read them. I usually resave my original draft and then start moving things around instead of starting with a blank paper. I knew these steps would work out for me because I have done them many times, however with this paper, I reached a point where I no longer knew where I should go with what I was writing.
What advice did you solicit for this draft? What was/were the source(s) of this advice? What advice were you given on this draft?
• I solely based by second draft off of suggestions made during writing group and from the few comments made by Mr. Chiappetta on my first draft. I wish I had gone in for a meeting, for although I sat down to write with the mindset that I knew exactly what I was doing, I reached a point where I wish I had thought through the entire paper more. Having a conference would have verified that I was going in the right direction, especially with a new type of essay style I do not know whether I fully encompassed (robo’s word of the day!) the full exploratory aspect.