After reading through some of my classmates most recent blog posts in search for an idea to bounce off of (They Say/ I Say) a fellow classmate, Roisin,wrote a post that I couldn’t have related to more. In her post, “The Dreaded Essay Rewrite,” she questioned why it was so hard for her to rewrite her Bloodchild essay, even though she is a dedicated and hardworking student. Unfortunately, I fall into the same boat.
Sure, I read through my papers quickly before submitting them and make a few slight changes, but I can only remember one true rewrite that I have ever done, only one time where I spent quite a few weeks reading and re-reading the same essay until it was near perfection. In my high school AP English class, we spent three months working on our college essays. I had the most motivated teacher, who truly wanted our essays to stand out among the thousands of other applicants. But it was rather annoying that every other day she expected us to come in with something in our essay changed, polished or improved. She warned us that it would be a challenging, and (surprisingly) emotional process. I, for sure, was the most frustrated out of all my classmates. Our teacher challenged us to dig deep and use an emotional topic, and everyone around me seemed to have had a tragic situation that molded them, a life changing experience that opened their eyes to new things, or a passion so unique that it set them apart from every other applicant. It took me quite a few weeks to pick a good topic. I started multiple drafts and none of them seemed to be enough, and when I finally picked a strong topic, I just couldn’t write it. I spent weeks trying to improve it, but rewriting was clearly not something I was capable of.
My teacher came to the conclusion that when I write, I try to write a final draft from the start. I correct mistakes along the way instead of leaving them and improving them the next time I work. This makes my rewrite process more difficult because I am limiting my opportunities for improvement. I go into an essay narrow minded, thinking I can write my best essay the very first time. With my Bloodchild essay my goal was to understand the rewriting process, and use it to take my writing to the next level. But to my surprise (and frustration), the rewrite process is even harder than writing the initial essay. I want to believe that I am getting better at this process, and that if I continue to use this writing process, I will end the semester, and my four years here, with wonderful writing techniques under my belt.