Do student always need to create multiple drafts? Not necessarily. In fact, experienced writers often don’t create multiple drafts of informal (e.g., e-mail) or formulaic (e.g., professional forms) texts (see, for example, Harris, “Composing Behaviors of One- and Multi-Draft Writers”). However, experienced writers don’t create multiple drafts precisely because they are experienced—they are confident enough in their abilities to feel comfortable composing in one sitting or with little revision—and this experience likely comes from strengths developed through drafting.

Experienced writers understand that some writing situations require speed and formulaic responses; in other words, experienced writers can successfully gauge whether a situation requires the care or extended thought process that creating multiple drafts allows. Inexperienced writers, on the other hand, usually don’t have the best interests of the situation in mind; rather, these writers often don’t draft because they mis-read the importance of the situation or simply don’t want to take the time to extend the writing process.

Other Interesting Findings

Do students arrive in the FYW class as habitual drafters? Some of the journal prompts may help me explore how the students’ entire process changes over the course of the semester.

In addition to learning drafting and other process strategies, many students indicated that learning about and practicing rhetorical analysis—understanding how to analyze and craft an argument—helped them perform better on reading and writing assignments in other classes. Because students benefit in multiple types of assignments—writing and reading—this skill transfers not only between similar settings (e.g., from essay to essay) but also between different settings, which is important.

On Being Part of the Elon Teaching and Learning Partnership

At the start of this process, I selected what I thought was a focused question and manageable methodology.

Now I know that the question, not only about transfer but about students’ drafting habits, and the methodology, research journals that provided insight into students’ perspectives on numerous aspects of writing, is fodder for multiple projects.

The results and discussion published here, while significant, only begin to scrape the surface of the subject. I look forward to continuing to dig.