Process Narrative for Each Longer Paper
English—Hamilton
Assignment: For every Revised Draft (the 3 longer papers), we ask that you include at the
beginning a Process Narrative. This 1-2 pages should be a typed description of the writing
process that you went through to from getting the assignment, pre-writing or gathering activities
that include our reading and your thinking, working on the first draft, the Writing Group process
and revision. This writing should be your own reflection about yourself as a writer. The goal
isn’t to be hard on yourself, but rather to learn about yourself as a writer, thinker, and
communicator. You will see your writing improve and you will gain confidence as you become
more aware of the style and rhythm of your own writing.
You can structure this narrative anyway you want, but we suggest you follow a chronological
order that includes your thoughts and reactions from the day you received the assignment until
you turn in the paper. Talk about what you are learning about your voice as a writer, your
choices as you communicate in writing, and the power of sharing your experience and ideas with
others. This is the place to talk about what your are learning from this assignment.
Some questions you might want to answer to get you started would be:
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What part of the assignment was most challenging for you? How did you deal with those
challenges?
How did you get started?
What kept you on track?
What gave you the most difficulty along the way?
What kind of pre-writing activities or thought processes did you use to get going?
What kind of feedback did you get from your Writing Group? How did you decide to use
the feedback and what not to use from that work together?
What kind of feedback did you give to others in your group and how did that help your
own paper?
How did you go about revising?
What would you do differently another time?
What do you think works the best in your process and in your paper itself?
If you had more time to work on this assignment, what would you change??