Oh, Workshopping

Although revision, at first, may seem a scary step to take, in letting some stranger read your personal thoughts, this process has proved to be immensely helpful at every point in my writing career. In Workshopping, I love when a reader comments on both what Isworking and what is Not working. I feel slightly less confident about turning a paper in if it has not been workshopped by someone at least once, especially in a class like this where the prompts are fairly open to interpretation. When something is wrong or awkward about a sentence, I appreciate a few suggestions for alternate ways of saying things, or ideas for using other words. To me, it is easier to read and edit as I go along, as opposed to reading the entire paper and then going back to mark. Awkward sentences often stop me in a paper, and thus why not fix them right on the spot, as opposed to coming back to them?
In our classroom setting, I would love to do a paper scramble, where we all put our papers into one pile and then randomly pick from the stack a paper to edit. I think I would get a wider range of responses from other students in the class, as opposed to sticking to those sitting near me. Although, I do love the comments I receive back from those who edit my paper. I like how these readers can interpret a story a completely different way than you had intended. This is one of the great thank you’s to Workshopping, because the way something sounds in my own head may make no sense whatsoever to a reader. I also appreciate the harsh feedback on my papers. If I have a reader who blatantly disagrees with the theme of my paper, then I do not mind them saying so. In the end, however, it will be me who has to decide whether the opinion of this one individual is correct for the majority or if it is one superfluous interpretation that does not call for my paper to be changed.
The way that I Workshop has not changed within the context of this class. Editing papers is something that I have done, for fun even, for a while now. My friends come to me to ask me to revise their papers, because they trust my criticism. I have, however, seen different ways of work shopping used by others in the class and I will most certainly take those into account when I Workshop in the future.