On Babies and Composition

Abstract

Writing a paper is like having a baby, I blithely told my composition class that first year I taught. Twenty-one years old, unmarried, and totally inexperienced in both procreation and teaching, I drew an analogy that twenty years as a high school English teacher and two babies later would prove valid in many ways. Similarities between the two processes reflect my attitudes about the composing process. The composing process can be divided into three stages: prewriting, writing, and rewriting. The prewriting stage is the most crucial for the teacher, the stage where the teacher's job is to create a desire to write. Similarly, desire is the beginning of the act of procreation. How, then, do we create the desire? It is our hardest job, and we do it by presenting exciting topics and interesting information and by giving a wide variety of choices to meet different interests and learning styles. Sometimes we have to be con artists, tricking students into becoming interested enough to write. We are planters of seeds, some of which will grow in the fertility of a young mind and some of which will never take root.