Perl and Sommers

Sondra Perl’s essay “The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers” examines a study which explored how unskilled writers compose by assigning them to write both in both an extensive, objective manner as well as a reflexive, reflective manner. In one specific case, outlined in the essay, Tony (the unskilled writer) spent more time prewriting and writing in the extensive mode but used fewer words. The reflexive mode took him 20 minutes longer, but he was able to come up with 194 more words. Therefore, he had more fluency in the reflexive mode. In the extensive mode, Tony slowed down and corrected his words and sentences several times because he was hooked on the idea that it had to be right which inevitably slowed down the flow of his writing. Furthermore, when the idea of prewriting was established as a guideline and the unskilled writers had to plan, it was easier for them to articulate the actual writing process because they had a sense of where their writing was going.

In Nancy Sommers’s essay “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers,” Sommers took a sample of twenty college freshmen as well as twenty experienced adults and compared their revision strategies. She found four different levels of changes: word, phrase, sentence, and theme. The students revised in order to “clean up speech” according to Sommers. Experienced writers, however, would rewrite and focus on language changes with the aim of making the argument stronger, identifying and getting rid of dissonance, and finding the shape of their argument. Experienced writers made changes on all levels, but students did not frequently use reordering or addition in their revision process, and lacked a holistic perspective in relation to their work.

In my own experiences with trying to help one of my friends form an argument for a paper, I realized that her main problem is that she cannot get through a sentence without rewording it three times. I tried to encourage her to write it out and get her ideas on paper and then revise, but she always reverts back to erasing every other word she writes and it ends up taking her much longer. This reminded me of Perl’s findings that “unskilled writers” get hooked on the idea that their writing has to be perfect. Sommers, too, explained how skilled writers will revise several times in order to really perfect their argument after completing their work. I know that when I write I try to keep myself from getting hung up on the sentence level errors or inconsistencies before I finish my argument. I also always plan out my argument so that it will be easier not only to write, but also to revise and find any inconsistencies in my argument.

I think the works of Perl and Sommers have a lot to do with Murray’s essay “Teach Writing as a Process Not Product” because just as Perl examines how unskilled writers compose, so too does Sommers test the difference in styles of unskilled and skilled writers. Murray urges teachers to allow the students to engage in the process of writing in order to learn. He clarifies that to be the process of prewriting, writing, and rewriting. Sommers focuses more in-depth on how rewriting styles differ between unskilled and skilled writers, but I believe something all three writers have in common is an attention to the different styles of different writers as well as how they might identify weaknesses.