Index Cards

In my first draft of the Sound and the Fury exploratory essay, I completely misunderstood the definition of an "exploratory essay" and the process of writing one. I understood the content, and class discussions helped trigger my memory of plot details that I forgot since reading The Sound and the Fury over the summer. During our peer revision meeting (or whatever it was called where we met with a group to discuss our first drafts) I realized that most of my essay was spent describing the deconstruction process, and there was not really a "question" that I explored. I more or less was describing a phenomenon that I already thought a lot about and wasn't really questioning: totally not the point of writing this.
After clarifying the process with both my peers and through conferencing with Chia, I wrote down my ideas surrounding promiscuity both inside and outside the novel on index cards. This helped me get my ideas written down so none would get lost in the abyss of frantic analysis. I then removed the index cards that I thought didn't fit in to the flow of my ideas, organized the remains into a groups to form a coherent, linear outline, and drew transition notecards (arrows) between the groups. This made the essay-writing process easier, for all my ideas were laid out in front of me.
An important part of this essay was my conference as well as comments provided by my peers. Most of these comments came as questions to which I had the answers. It also made me realize how much I over-analyze.
I believe that after my ideas were drawn out of me through "verbal comments provided to me," I was able to see the big picture, and the index card process was merely a way for me to organize my essay and speed up the process a bit. In the future I would like to continue outlining my ideas in this fashion, as well as avoid over-analyzing. I just need to look at the big picture, and details will help support whatever conclusion I arrive at, but focusing on small aspects within the big picture won't help me determine anything, and I won't make sense at all.