Entry 1: My Own Reading and Writing Processes

    After reading the article by Tierney and Pearson (1983), as well as the first few pages of Tompkins (2012), I have started to think about my reading and writing processes. One of the biggest realizations that I have had thus far is how similar reading and writing truly are. I had always known that reading and writing were similar and influenced each other, but had not considered how similar their processes are. Tierney and Peason (1983) suggest that reading and writing have similar processes of planning, drafting, aligning, revising, and monitoring. I had not really considered how one can plan to read prior to this reading. I knew that planning was an essential part of writing, but did not realize how important it was to plan to read. Planning to read is something that occurs without even thinking about it. When given assignments for class to read, I typically skim the chapters or articles prior to reading to get an idea of how long it might take me. I also skim the readings ahead of time to see what they might be about and activate some background knowledge to help me better understand. Additionally, I had not considered how revising played a part in the reading process. I knew how important it is to revise your own writing, but not how to revise when reading. From my understanding, revising when reading means going back to what you just read and making sense of it. This may not occur with every sentence or every paragraph, but only when needed, similar to revising when writing. One thing I am left wondering about reading and writing is if their processes are so similar, why are we taught the writing process in school, but not a similar reading process?
    In the first few pages of Tompkins (2012), the writing process is outlined. While reading, I was reflecting on my own writing process and how it has changed over the years. When the writing process was first introduced to me in elementary school, there was a large emphasis on the pre-writing/drafting stage. At first, I would spend a good amount of time sitting down and planning what I was going to write. Now, after years of writing, I tend to do this stage  without really thinking about it. I rarely actually sit down and plan or draft what I am going to write. Instead, I find myself thinking about the writing task throughout the day, and think of the key points that I want to write about. For example, before sitting down to write this blog post, I thought about the prompt almost all day today, so by the time I sat down to write, I had key points that I wanted to make sure I mentioned. During my planning process, I also think about the audience and tone I want to have in my writing. For this blog post, I knew I could be more informal, which definitely helped in my planning process. However, for more formal writing tasks, I find planning to be more difficult. Since I cannot (for lack of a better term) “word vomit” what is on my mind, this requires more formal planning and is often more difficult. 
    I am excited to reflect on my writing practices throughout this semester and become a better writer in the process!