I have never produced that amount of writing in such a short timeframe. However, I decided upon a revolutionary idea: I would write the way I teach my students to write! Soon, I felt overwhelming anxiety and dread, feelings that inherently come as part of the writing process. I imagine you find my reaction as odd as I do: I love writing, and I write well, so why would I feel this way? After this entire process, I have drawn this conclusion: to produce a quality piece of writing requires extraordinary effort and fortitude and to produce a quality piece of writing quickly and efficiently requires a level of discipline unknown in most tasks. Additionally, it requires copious amounts of coffee.
Much to my pride and satisfaction, I successfully completed the paper in three days. Three. Days. That includes a Works Cited and an Appendix with samples of student work! I learned that under such pressure, not only could I pre-write effectively, I could write well quickly (no passive verbs the FIRST time around). Furthermore, I also came to the most important realization of all: the way I teach you to write will make you unstoppable even in the most excruciating of high-pressure situations. So thank you, my students! Without you, I would not experience the push to practice all of these skills all of the time.
Hey! Can you hear that? Off in the distance? It’s me! Tooting my own horn!
Side note: In an effort to inspire responses, the first five people to compose solid comments to this entry will receive bonus points!
One of the only up-sides to being home sick is that I have laid around doing absolutely nothing all day, and out of complete boredom, I decided to not procrastinate with my work! Unlike you, Ms. Serensky, I have a bad habit of procrastinating, but I am trying to change that! I'm glad you were able to get your paper done in such short amount of time!
ReplyDeleteMs. Serensky, I also have the need to finish tasks as soon as possible. I find it interesting that you express such feelings of pride and happiness for completing the paper in such short time; I think these feelings often fuel our fellow procrastinators to push off assignments to the last minute. The fear of not finishing the paper helps one to write efficiently, a reason of which procrastinators argue to delay starting an obligation. Yet, I think those of us with habits of completing tasks in a timely fashion would believe the stress of delaying work outweighs the benefits of realizing the ability to write quickly and thoroughly under pressure.
ReplyDeleteI am probably one of the worst procrastinators on the planet. I save everything for the "last minute": homework, projects, scholarship applications...you name it. However, I'm trying to correct my bad habit in order to avoid a situation like yours in the future. I cannot risk failing a paper and risking my academic future because of laziness. It's truly unacceptable. I highly doubt that I would be able to crank out a 15 page paper in such a short amount of time. The thought alone is causing me to stress out! I admire your accomplishment, Ms. Serensky. You go on and toot that horn! You earned the right to do so.
ReplyDeleteI believe one of the reasons we feel such dread and anxiety when face a paper, atleast the reason I feel the dread, is because I stress more about producing a clever, indepth, well written paper, than the actual work of creating the paper. Yes, I do tend to procrastinate, but not because of the amount of work I need to face, but more because I need to throw myself into everything I do, completely. I want to find the most obscure, unveiling points, and I need to know when I finish something, that it represents my best work. When I start a paper, or any task, I need to know I did my best on it, which takes a lot of work. So, for me, that is why I feel the anxiety before a project.
ReplyDeleteOne of my biggest problems in school have been my problems with procrastination. I like to live by the saying "why do today what you can put off until tomorrow." However, in most assignment english has not allowed me to live this way. With our most recent writing I could not postpone writing my drafts and learned to accomplish different tasks even when I had "a lot" of time. Yet, english has also taught me to turn my procrastination into a good thing. With all of our timed writings I learned that much of my best work comes from having a time limit and deadline. I have learned to act more like you and not catch the procrastination bug, but also to work under pressure and with little time.
ReplyDeleteComment # 6 AKA non-bonus point receiving comment: While reflecting on our blog topic and your topic of procrastination, I realized I killed two birds with one stone. Not only did I complete the challenge of not using my phone, I also conquered one of my biggest flaws... procrastination. With no distractions and time to waste, I decided to actually start my homework early! I ended up finishing everything not only early enough to go to bed at a reasonable hour, but I also had time to watch my scheduled shows! If only I put my phone away every time I had an assignment. Maybe I would improve my writing! Yes, AP english taught me how to manage time and crank out work but now I just need to set some time aside to utilize my skills.
ReplyDelete