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Rochelle Myers English 111 November 19, 2013

When writing drafts for papers there is no difference between a student and an author learning to write. We all start as students and learn how to write drafts. Some fail and others succeed but honestly there is no difference in the beginning. I read two different articles that relate to each other about this issue. The first is Shitty First Drafts and the second is From Silence to Words; Writing as struggle both of these articles are about learning and writing drafts. Firstly, In the article Shitty First Drafts by Anne Lamott she talks about how people think that authors can just write one draft and have it be perfect. Thats contradicting from what we have learned in grade school. Authors have worked their way up to make their writing good enough to be published. But honestly even their writing is not perfect, it is just really good. Writing can always have room for little tweaks within the paragraphs. This goes along with another article called From Silence to Words; writing as struggle written by Min-Zhan Lu. In the article From Silence to Words; Writing as struggle Min-Zhan Lus mother had raised her in china and moved her to the United States. She also expected Min-Zhan Lus education to be very important. But it was somewhat a struggle because she was learning a new culture and also making her education the most important thing. So her writing made her struggle a lot and her drafts were not perfect. Anne Lamott mentions that We all often feel like we are pulling teeth, even those writers whose prose ends up being the most natural and fluid(Lamott 326). Which is meaning that we all struggle to start things for the first time. Some think that Authors just sit down and can write their first draft perfect. But no it does not work that way. Min-Zhan

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Lu struggled a lot at first but she started catching on but not like everyone else who had already grew up around the culture. When others view somebody elses kids and their behavior, academics or even manners they judge the way that those parents raised their children. It may have been different than you raised yours but it still does not mean it is wrong. She mentions that my mother had devoted her life to our education, an education she knew had made us suffer political persecution during the Cultural Revolution (Min-Zhan Lu 328). She had trouble with writing because she was from china and tried writing in the United States. Her mother regrets the way she raised minZhan Lu because she had brought her the conflict of bringing her to the challenge of two conflicting worlds. Does this mean that she raised her wrong no it does not. Even though Min-Zhan Lu was not an author teachers still expected her to write a good draft like an American. This was hard for her because she was still learning english and a new culture. Why do people expect authors or even a student to be able to write a good draft? It takes more than one draft to revise and make it your best one. Thats the way we grew up learning in school because we have to turn in like 4-5 different drafts revising every time. But you expect an author to just turn one in and for it to be perfect? In school when we were taught to write papers it was usually 3-5 sentences in a paragraph. Contains an introduction, three body paragraphs and a conclusion. Also we were assigned a couple of days for revision and days that drafts were due. Thats how it always has been. Also for the MEAP or ACT testing we are told a topic to write about but they don't tell you those requirements that we have grown up with. They do that because they are trying to test your knowledge on what teachers have taught you. When students had their drafts reviewed and

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would get negative feedback some of them would feel like they were failures. When you feel like you are a horrible writer it's hard for them to get back into fixing and writing a new draft. Thats some of the differences that these articles have is that when an author messes up or gets bad feedback they dont usually get as disappointed as Min-Zhan Lu would. Min-Zhan Lu feels as her writing is putting up walls where she is being challenged and has to get past it but when she fails its hard to keep going. An author faces challenges and walls that get put up every day when they go to write a new draft. But they push themselves past that point.

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Work Cited Lamott Anne, Shitty First Drafts, Exploring Relationships: Globalization and Learning in the 21st century. Ed. Tyrick and Elden. Boston, Pearson. 2013. 325-328. Print Lu Min-Zhan, From silence to words: writing as struggle. Exploring Relationships: Globalization and Learning in the 21st century. Ed. Tyrick and Elden. Boston, Pearson. 2013. 328-338. Print.