Monday Monday, can't trust that day

So we are supposed to evoke a question about the day. Seems appropriate considering the quotation about questions and enlightenment that we used as a prompt to begin the day. Well, I can't just do the obvious so I need to synthesize my question from a few sources.

Source #1: Harvey's form in the 1st exercise. He used all questions. It was coherent, definitely a great paragraph (or 2), but something I never expected.

Source #2: The discussion about using expressions like "I believe..." in our Philosophies of Teaching Writing. It seemed like we dropped into two camps pretty reflexively, the "No-I's" and the "Many-I's." the discussion was mainly about performative knowledge, and we didn't get much deeper than opinions of "how I've done it" into "why do it."

Source #3: The obvious contrast between academic theory and rubber meets the road, down and dirty, in the trenches practice. Like I said at introduction, I'm the anomaly, the pre-pre-service teacher. I've had lots of classes; I know some names and some theory. I like theory. I've led a few exercises and I know that participatory presentations are more effective than lectures and PowerPoint slides. I'm going to sponge off everyone else's experience and steal ideas for my future classroom left and right.

So here, with much build-up, is my question. Where's the balance between rigid, necessary conventions that must be taught and the freedom that I want to give when students get going? Different angles are interesting, sure, but somethings gotta be a certain way sometimes. For instance, I can use the word "gotta" in my journal, but not in a formal paper. When is best to emphasize conventions/editing/polish? Does it vary depending what sort of product we're making? With the 6 steps handout, it seems like we should have a separate steps for revision and editing, but as we read each others drafts it was hard not to go after it like the next draft was the one for a deadline.