To my fellow college students, I’d like to pose a scenario: You have a four-page essay with a deadline just around the corner. Lucky for you, it’s just the first draft that’s due and doesn’t count toward your final grade. To make things a little easier for yourself, you might “simplify” your writing a little here and there so that you can “Cinderella” your paper for the final draft. In other words, you want to make your final paper look magically beautiful overnight in comparison to that first draft. If that sounds like something you’ve done in the past, I promise you’re not alone. I’ve known people (including myself) who skimp out on the first draft so that they can “actually” try for the final draft and automatically get better results. While it’s a viable tactic if the aim is to get a grade, then sure – good job, mission accomplished! However, I think we all know the little angel on our shoulders is whispering in our ears how much of a disservice we’re doing to ourselves.
As students, if we’re not putting in full effort into all of our drafts then there’s no way we can tangibly improve on our skills as writers. Jillian Grauman writes a piece entitled “What’s That Supposed to Mean? Using Feedback on Your Writing” that focuses on the benefits of understanding and applying feedback on our drafts to future pieces in productive and meaningful ways. Immediately, Grauman identified an issue that I didn’t even realize I’ve been struggling with my entire academic career! She writes about how a common challenge for students and their writing is that their belief in their writing abilities is inherent and unchangeable. In other words, I thought my skills would never get better or worse but remain static. Perhaps if I had written better first drafts, I would have gotten relevant and meaningful feedback that would’ve developed my skills as a writer! Grauman identifies this fallacy as having a “fixed mindset”. The predominant theme of her piece is all about being open to change and accepting influence.
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