Unskilled? The Differences of Students and Experienced Writers

Today we had 2 readings from Cross-Talk, they were: "The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers" by Sondra Perl and "Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers" by Nancy Sommers. Perl's paper unveiled findings of the "composing process" of "unskilled" writers. She starts by saying that the composing process can be recorded through: "students written products, their composing tapes, and their responses to the interview" (19). First a code was created and then time for each coded process was documented. She concludes that the data shows that unskilled writers are aware highly aware of revision as being only proofreading grammar. This level of revision did not match their ability to write.

Sommer's brings up a hole in composition research by stating that "current models of the writing process have directed attention away from revision. She notes that with speech there is no going back, and that "writing begins at the point where speech becomes impossible" (45). With revision being the focus she concluded their is a large difference in the revision styles of Student Writers to Experienced Adult Writers. She concludes that student writers look at "the revision process as a rewording activity". However, the Experienced writer looks to revise the context first and make sure "key" points are clear and the purpose of the paper is focused throughout. They only at the end do they revise to ensure the correct grammar usage has been applied.

I found these readings to be very helpful in a variety of ways. I recognize in my early revisions as a student I use to solely focus on grammar. Now I do revise for both content and grammar simultaneously, when in a hurry. I also revise content as I write and normally rarely care about grammar in the beginning because I know I will revise my paper. However, I know I typically I write better if a read for clarity of purpose and then grammatically change the paper. SO I agree with both, but I am not sure when the transition occurred. As a soon to be tutor, I took away that talking about the context and focus is crucial to helping my tutee. Also reading this research shows me the process that I am trying to break my tutee of and helps me be more cognitively aware of the type of discourse that needs to occur to help both my writing process and that of my tutee's.

After reading these two papers one can easily draw parallels to our previous readings. Perl's notation (19) brings up a good point that the teacher is not always the audience and that is where there two studies differentiate. I think that an extension of Perl's paper one can say that peer anaysis can be just as effective in terms of revision. I think Sommer's key point of the speech being non revisable makes it key to writing for a purpose. Therefore one must talk it out to make sure the point is clear in the writers head before the writing process is truly effective. I think Bruffee would definitely agree.