Perl and Sommers

In The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers, Perl discusses the important findings from a study of the writing processes of five unskilled college writers. The goal of the study was to address three main questions: (1) How do unskilled writers write? (2) Can their writing processes be analyzed in a systematic, replicable manner? (3) What does an increased understanding of their processes suggest about the nature of composing in general and the manner in which wirting is taught in the schools? The study took place during the 1975-76 fall semester at Eugenio Maria de Hostos Community College of the City University of New York (what a mouthful...try fitting that name across the middle of a sweatshirt). Each student participated in five 90-minute sessions where the student spent a lot of time writing "aloud" and externalizing his/her thinking process. The researchers were not allowed to interfere with this activity.

From this study, researchers were able to create a method to chart the movements that take place during writing. This method looked at the composing process as standardized, categorical, concise, structural, and diachronic. In order to code each composing behavior, researchers created a chart and terms for distinguishing actions. These tedious steps were necessary because they provided researchers with a system that was categorical and replicable. Furthermore, researchers were also interested in the duration and sequence of behaviors. To chart this process, they created a time line and a numbering system.

There were four major findings in this study. The first finding was that teachers have been incorrect about unskilled writers. All of the students in the study engaged in a lot of internalized processes, which reveals that their writing approach was thoughtful and far from "unskilled." This lead researchers to conclude that students' lack of proficiency (not their thought processes) was the real problem- it was causing them to prematurally correct their work and lose the form of what they were writing. These unskilled writers are considered "beginners" although they are really engaging in elaborate writing processes. Too often teachers make the mistake of assuming that they need to begin from day 1, when in reality, students just need help with the "knots and tangles" of the writing process. The second implication of the study is that it has provided teachers with a replicable, graphic method of the composing process. This allows teachers to better understand how individual students write. The third implication is that several theories have been dervied from these case studies. New concepts can lead to new research and thus better understanding of the writing process. The final implication is that teachers have learned they need to study not just forms or products, but the processes that lead to them.

Overall, I think the findings of this study are really important. I think the researchers' method of coding the composing process is brilliant. It is so difficult to gauge the writing process and this allows students the opportunity to really understand their strengths and weaknesses. Composition involves so many elaborate techniques and strategies that it is sometimes hard to determine why a paper doesn't work. I have personally struggled with this problem and I find it frustrating that I cant identify the individual behaviors that may need to be modified. I don't really see any faults to this method, so I wonder why it has not been implemented in more school settings. In my opinion, it's sad that the first time I've heard of this method is my senior year in college. I think it could have really benefitted me in my early development as a writer.

The main finding of this study really seems to support the work of Donald Murray. The researchers determined that unskilled writers are still heavily engaged in internalized processes, which reveals that their writing approach is very involved and far from "unskilled." Murray would probably agree with these findings, because he believes in teaching writing as a process and not a product. He seems to understand that students often struggle with "knots and tangles" but that they should try to ignore them and focus more on the process. He would probably encourage these unskilled students to write without spending so much time on etiquette or custom.

In the Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers, Nancy Sommers writes about a case study used to chart the revision processes of student writers and experienced writers. Each writer wrote three essays which were counted and categorized by the changes made. The study identified four main revision types: deletion, substitution, addition, and reordering; and four levels of change: word, phrase, sentence, and theme. Like Perl, Sommers also created a coding method to chart these processes.

Student writers had the most trouble simply understanding what "revision" entails- which lead them only to revise in a narrow and predictable way. Sommers concluded that these writers need a set of strategies to help them identify the larger issues in the essay. Beginning students tend to shift words around or reorder lines instead of attacking the real issues only because they don't know how to attack the real issues. This is probably due to the fact that these students have always been bound by textbooks and grammar rules. Once they are finished with basic editing, they do not know how to take the next step. Alternatively, experienced writers look at revision as a whole process. This process involves several cycles, each cycle giving different levels of attention to different aspects of the paper.

Overall, the study concludes that beginning writers need to trust their own writing instincts- and use them as a guide for attacking the "whole" paper. Like the beginning students in this study, I once struggled with revision. In grade school, I only edited papers for spelling and punctuation, not form or function. I could recognize that I needed major changes but I did not know how to initiate them. Now, as a more experienced writer, I can identify with revision as a process with many different cycles. I know that one of my weaknesses is organization, so sometimes I will spend hours cutting and pasting from my work.

I think there are many similarities between Perl's case study and Sommers' case study. Both of these researchers used replicable and categorical processes. Again, this is something that I wish I would have had more experience with in grade school. This method taught both researchers quite a bit about the ins and outs of the writing process. Perl discovered that unskilled students are struggling the most with knots and tangles, not their internalized processes. This is similar to what Sommers discovered when she found that beginning writers focus on grammar and punctuation. It seems like these two writers have reached a general consensus that beginning writers need to stop worrying about grammar and take a better look at the overall picture.