College years, tough professors, and the art of revision

1998.

Professor Emily Watts. English 351 - Literature of Modernism. I'm a junior at the University of Illinois. My major is Rhetoric and I've never ever, in all my years of schooling, received below a C on a paper. I was considered one of the best writers in my high school.  I won second prize in a high school writing competition for a short story I wrote my sophomore year. My senior year, I was awarded the English Student of the Year award. My freshman year of college my Introduction to Poetry professor said that I was "one of the only students who could write an effective complex sentence."

The first semester of my Junior year I was on the Dean's List. So by the time I reach English 351, I'm feeling pretty cocky and pretty burnt out. The first paper I write for the class I choose to write on the portrayal of America in The Sun Also Rises and Tender is the Night. Not a bad topic in itself, but I've barely read the novels once through (actually only half-read Tender is the Night), and I've also missed at least one class for each novel, and have pretty much no idea where the characters are from in The Sun Also Rises, making it especially hard to think about American portrayals.

But I like The Sun Also Rises, and I think I can bullshit my way through it like I've muddled through other papers I'm less than enthusiastic about. Even though I know my finished product is less than perfect--way less than perfect--I turn it in thinking I'll slide by with a C. 

One week later, Professor Emily Watts hands me back my paper and my breath is caught at the site of a big blue D- on the back and about 3/4 of a page of writing. I've never scored so poorly on a paper, not even on bad papers.  Even though it's spring semester and I've dedicated the semester to slacking off, I can't let this grade slide.  I need to at least find out why I did so poorly.

I know why I did poorly. I never revise. I don't give myself enough time to revise because I'm also a procrastinator.  And besides, I was more or less clueless about the subject matter. A day later, I visit Professor Watts' office hours, paper in tow. I'm embarrased to even look at the paper.  After an hour of talking, my tears barely contained, she allows me to rewrite it and lets me know how pleased she is that I cared enough to come talk to her about it. After hours and days and weeks of rewriting and rereading and revising and re-everything I take it back to Professor Watts for a new grade. This time I she gives me a C-, "an improvement," she says, "but still lacking."

I'm frustrated, but still on my slacking regime so I don't pursue it any further. Instead, I vow to attend class more. This works because on both midterm and final I score A-'s. This, I'm happy with. But again my last paper is below par for my expectations, scoring at a high B-.

Emily Watts is the second teacher to push my limits, but the first to grade my writing so low. My cockiness disintegrated into a pool of marked up papers staring me in the face. 

After a long summer of no classes and few obligations, I decide I'd like to attend grad school. My slacker status is lifted and I dig into my classes, taking two upper-level English classes, an upper-level Journalism class, and a Pyschology class.  Applying to grad schools is like taking another class.  And, unlike undergrad applications, I have to send a well-written paper along with the application.  I mull over revising a paper or writing a whole new one.

Finally I see Professor Watts in the hallway one day and ask her if I can talk with her about my applications. She advises me to rework a paper I've already written.  One of the few I've been mulling over is the B- paper I wrote for her the semester before. She loans me a few books to use as outside sources and I spend most of my free time working on my grad school paper. I see her once a week until the week before my first application is due. She's never satisifed with my paper but each time she says I have improved and she gives me more options to think about for the next revision.

I'm frightened that all these revisions mean that I'm not grad school material. Up to this point in my academic life, I've never revised so much, if at all.  She pushes me and pushes me to re-see my paper. Finally, I tell her I can't revise it again; this has to be the finished product and we discuss my ending and my word choices. After that meeting, I put it away and don't look at it again--whatever happens from this point on is beyond my control. But I still can't get Hemingway out of my head and I see a listing in the spring catalog for a Hemingway & Fitzgerald class. I sign up for it even though my English credits are fulfilled and I only need an elective to graduate.  Professor Emily Watts is once again my teacher. But this time I have a completely different experience with her.

On my first paper, comparing three heroines of Fitzgerald's stories, I try a little harder than usual. I want her to think I am capable of graduate work, and not regret her recommendation. I revise the paper. I start on it two days before it's due and I work all day. After I think I have a completed paper I put it aside and the next day, the day before it's due, I reread it. I mark it up, I change the beginning, I physically cut it up and rearrange the paragraphs to see which story I should start with, which examples go where. That night I spend three hours making the revisions to my computer copy.

A week after I turn it in, she hands me back a paper with, to my surprise, a big blue A. She comments that she was "delighted" to read my essay and was "astounded" at the improvement I had shown in one year's time.

Once again I score A-'s on both midterm and final. My second paper I don't work so hard on, it's the last paper of my entire undergraduate career, and I have just turned in two other papers to other classes. But I still take the time to revise it, not as drastically as the first one, but at least I read it over a second time and change the order of paragraphs.  This paper receives an A-. I'm not sure I deserve it but her comments once again show her pride in my work.  She remarks that she is always pleased when a student shows a "willingness to improve" and that I have shown my ability and dedication to improve throughout the last few years.

She still makes the same comments as she always had about certain grammatical mistakes I seem to repeat, but I no longer have the comments revolving around support and accuracy. Professor Watts taught me that cockiness has no business in writing, and that there is always room for improvement. I learned that my slacker attitude can't be too slacking if I'm incapable of letting certain grades slide by and if I'll take the extra time to rewrite a paper with which I'm unsatisified.  I learned that giving myself enough time to revise is my main problem, because all papers I've revised score remarkably better than those I haven't taken the time to even look at a second time.  And I learned that given the time and the willingness to learn, one person can teach you quite a bit about yourself.