You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it's loose or cramped or decayed, or even,

You need to start somewhere.

the whole process would start again, complete with the fears that people would find my first draft before I could rewrite it

that I had panicked because my talent was waning and my mind was shot

. "Annie," she said, "it is just a piece of chicken. It is just a bit of cake.

. "Annie," she said, "it is just a piece of chicken. It is just a bit of cake.

ll I had to do was to write a really shitty first draft of, say, the opening paragraph. And no one was going to see it.

feel despair and worry settle on my chest like an x-ray apron.

knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later.

really shitty first drafts

One might hope for bad things to rain down on a person like this.

come pouring out like ticker tape most of the time.

It's not like you don't have a choice, because you do -- you can either type, or kill yourself."

bounding along like huskies across the snow.

But this is just the fantasy of the uninitiated

that they take in a few deep breaths, push back their sleeves, roll their necks a few times to get all the cricks out, and dive in, typing fully formed passages as fast as a court reporter.

All good writers write them.

Now, practically even better news than that of short assignments is the idea of shitty first drafts.

she argues for the need to let go and write those “shitty first drafts” that lead to clarity and sometimes brilliance in our second and third drafts.

Rosie (1983), Crooked Little Heart (1997), All New People (2000), and Blue Shoes (2002)

1 Shitty First Drafts

Next time you're tempted to praise your students' intelligence or talent, restrain yourself. Instead, teach them how much fun a challenging task is, how interesting and informative errors are, and how great it is to struggle with something and make progress. Most of all, teach them that by taking on challenges, making mistakes, and putting forth effort, they are making themselves smarter

To do this, we have begun to develop a computer-based program called "Brainology." In six computer modules, students learn about the brain and how to make it work better

parents deal with this by reassuring their children how smart they are

Intelligence praise, compared to effort (or "process") praise, put children into a fixed mindset. Instead of giving them confidence, it made them fragile, so much so that a brush with difficulty erased their confidence, their enjoyment, and their good performance, and made them ashamed of their work

They also lost their enjoyment, and, as a result, their performance plummeted

The children praised for their effort wanted the task they could learn from

It might tell them that intelligence is just something you have and not something you develop. It might deny the role of effort and dedication in achievement. In short, it might promote a fixed mindset with all of its vulnerabilities

I believe it has had disastrous effects

They don't want to make mistakes and feel dumb — and, most of all, they don't want to work hard and feel dumb. So they simply retire.

But those with fixed mindsets were more likely to say that they would feel dumb, study less the next time, and seriously consider cheating.

why stereotypes have such profound effects on students' achievement.