Toward a Composing Model of Reading

Everytime I sit down to write something I self-consciously utilize the five steps that Tierney and Pearson talk about in their article, "Toward a Composing Model of Reading".  From a young age, you're taught how to plan and set up a message and purpose you're trying to convey.  I remember choosing a topic and then making web diagrams from there with smaller topics to back up my main idea.  I remember the drafting process of using my peers for help and getting others' opinions on how my message sounded to a bigger audience.  Aligning is a concept where I am not sure I see the difference from revising, but with revising, I would go back over my drafts with a fine toothed comb and make sure that everything in the paper ultimately tied together.  Monitoring was always nice to receive a paper back with positive feedback and use the critical feedback to better my other papers I wrote down the road.

Regarding this Wikipedia article, I definitely can now look back and see how I used all five of these techniques.  I wanted to do something local within Athens and had recently been taken up to The Ridges so, I thought about doing something particularly on the Tuberculosis Ward because it was the only building that remained unrennovated.  I had also heard so many interesting stories about that building in particular, I thought for sure I would be able to find information on it.  The internet provided no legitimate sources towards the history of the grounds so I thought I would try something new and go to the archives in the library.  When the man told me they had hardly anything on that ward, I had to change up my tactics and finally decided on revamping the current Wikipedia page on the hospital in general.

There was so much information I found in the archives that had not been included on the page so I was so excited to be able to really put forth the correct information and  tell the true story about the hospital.  At first I added small facts and edits into my draft, then I began adding huge paragraphs of information that never seemed to make it onto the page.  I then went back over it and made sure everything sounded perfect.  I used a thesaurus to make sure I had a good variety of words and didn't sound repetitive.  I also tried to use a neutral, factual voice when I was writing it.  I don't think there is a way to be really "for" or "against" the athens lunatic asylum though...

I haven't yet submitted the final version of the page yet because I am going to look over it some more tomorrow morning and add some pictures perhaps to the article, but when I do finally save changes, I will watch the article grow and get edited by others.  It was such interesting subject matter, I'd love to learn more even.