Prof. Jody R. Rosen | ENG 1101-LC96 | Fall 2024

Discussion: Pre-Writing Education Narratives

In the Project 1 assignment instructions, I ask everyone to do what’s called pre-writing. This is thinking, planning, brainstorming, and even writing that will help you get ready to start writing your first draft–thought it might not show up directly in your first draft.

To get started:

Begin with some brainstorming and freewriting. The answers to these questions might not end up in what you submit for Project 1, but they can be part of your drafting process, or as Anne Lamott calls it, your shitty first draft:

  • Reflect on where you hope to be in five years (right after college?) or perhaps a bit further in the future.
  • Think big. Who do you want to be? Where do you want to be? What do you want to be doing? In other words, what do you want your professional life to look like?  
  • Reflect on some personal experiences that shaped who you are and your goals for the future. Your experience might be about a class you took, a text you read, a space where you like to learn, or a mentor who had an impact on you.

Stated more simply: What path are we on? What’s something in our lives we would want to write about as representing a moment that got us interested in the path we’re on for school, career, life?

Photo credit: “scribble scribble.” by StaceyJean via Flickr under the license CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

2 Comments

  1. amira

    I chose city tech to study architecture because one city tech has a good program for architecture and because architecture is always something I wanted to do, I feel like this major suits me because I like designing houses and I like planning out and sketching out stuff. one day I want to have my own company and be successful and just build on from there. I want my professional life to have my own company not only one but through the world and be successful everywhere and to be known for something I love doing. In the future I want to be doing my family and people houses to design it and turn it into something they love and like, that’s my goal. this major is all I wanted to do sense I was a kid, even in high school throughout my 4 years I took. painting and fashion classes to understand the color theory and many stuff that it can help me in the future for my major and for fashion I took it to learn to sketch out things but instead I was sketching out models. something that I would write on that got me on this path is defiantly my family and one of the best dean that I might throughout my high school, he helped me os much and he would be thereon i’m here today and doing the major i’m doing today.

  2. Jody R. Rosen

    Some other ideas from our freewriting:

    • money
    • fits my schedule
    • get a job that has to do with my passion
    • work for the MTA
    • mentor helped motivate me
    • honing a talent
    • see the concepts in the real world
    • childhood passions
    • building structures as a child

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