Scores of composition instructors agree that writing should be taught as a recursive process, rather than a liner process, and they also agree that most writers employ certain writing strategies as they produce drafts. Sandra Perl’s article, Understanding Composing” shares these beliefs because she states: “writing does appear to be recursive, yet the parts that recur seem to vary from writer to writer and from topic to topic” (142). Perl explains that throughout the writing process, writers employ a “forward-moving action that exists by virtue of
backward-moving action” (141). Furthermore, Perl claims that when writers plan, draft, and revise their writings, they use a process she labels as retrospective structuring which involves attending to a writer’s a felt sense, returning to the topic presented, rereading what has been already written, and reassessing the words written (145).
Perl claims that the most important retrospective structuring feature involves writers paying attention to their felt sense, a term she borrows from Eugene Gendlin, a philosopher at the University of Chicago (142). Perl defines a writer’s felt sense as a bodily experience or nonverbal thought that “surround the words, or to what the words already present evoke in the writer” (142). Moreover, when writers use the process of felt sense they pause and react to “what is inside of them,” and writers seem to focus on “careful attention to one’s inner reflections and is often accompanied with bodily sensations”(Perl 144). Furthermore, Perl believes that skilled writers employ their felt sense unknowingly while unskilled writers can be taught how to pay close attention to their felt sense (144).
Perl then describes that when presented with a topic, w...
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...g (147).
I believe that Perl offers some valuable insights to the composing process, and I agree with her that writing is a recursive process. As an English tutor, I always encourage my student to reread what they have previously written. In doing so, many students will discover that some sentences in their drafts ”just do not sound right” and they are now able to make the necessary adjustments, making their writing more coherent. I also believe that rereading key words in the topic helps students generate new ideas and the key words in the topic could be used during a prewriting activity, such as creating a clustering diagram. Lastly, I am elated that Perl provides a name to something that cannot really be explained—felt sense. I will now be able to tell my students to “call up” their felt sense as way to aid with their writing.
...e does not discuss what she is writing, while she is writing it. She is afraid that if she speaks of it, it will wear out her idea. She says, “If you want to be a writer, I have two pieces of advice. One is to be a reader. I think that's one of the most important parts of learning to write. The other piece of advice is: Just do it! Don't think about it, don't agonize, sit down and write”.
I am more knowledgeable about invention, arrangement, style, and delivery, all in which create a masterful piece of text. A few examples, I have learned to organize and construct my thoughts and ideas clearer. I have been taught to use stronger transitions and focus more on the delivery and content of the body element of essays. Further, the instructions and advice I have received throughout this term have influenced my understanding of the purpose of writing. My outlook on writing has been modified by shifting my perception of writing from, writing to prove I am a good writer by perceiving it as using “fluffy” or BIG words to impress my audience. I grew to understanding that good writing’s purpose is to engage the writer by mind-striking ideas and arguments, which therefore will prove and title me as a “good writer”.
Thomas Osborne opens the narrative with a description of himself up very late at night trying to write a paper. Sadly, he’s been at it for four days, and unfortunately he seems to have writer’s block. Osborne’s personal experience with a first draft that he deems “failed” due to the writer’s block. Also, his realization of his personal writing style and how he uses it to his advantage versus conforming to a more normal style of writing occurs later in the selection. Looking through the lens of a reflective analysis perspective, it’s easy for me to find similarities to Osborne through my writing style, personal experiences, and through analysis I better understood
In this essay, “The Marker’s eyes”, the author, Donald Murray details how the writer needs to produce a progression of the draft. Murray also stresses the importance of revising your draft is when you really discover the deeper meaning of your writing. Murray explains how to a professional writer, the first draft and its following drafts are what helps them to get started with the writing task. The author also talks about developing a special type of reading skill, which will help the writer progress from draft to draft. He goes and says that writing is never finished in the writer's eye, it can always be modified and rearranged. The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate to the readers how important revising is
In his essay, "Teach Writing as a Process not a Product," Donald Murray outlines the major difference between the traditional pedagogy that directed the teaching of writing in the past and his newly hailed model. Traditionally, Murray explains, English teachers were taught to teach and evaluate students' writing as if it was a finished product of literature when, as he has discovered, students learn better if they're taught that writing is a process. For Murray, once teachers regard writing as a process, a student-centered, or writer-centered, curriculum falls into place. Rules for writing fall by the way side as writers work at their own pace to see what works best for them.
In "The Maker's Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscript," the writer, Donald Murray, demonstrates that writers need to create a few drafts. In the improvement of creating drafts, each draft can be changed and reworked to be clearer. Authors need to welcome both negative input and compliments and be suspicious of both. Murray likewise focuses on the significance of reworking, which incorporates forms like filtering drafts and altering issues which sentences are not in respect to the theory with a specific end goal to make them legible (Murray, p.102). Also, writers must make sure to be more aware of the audience interests and be sure their audience understands the information which the writer is trying to precisely convey. As such, authors must comprehend
Anyone who is doing any type of writing piece has a process. They may not know it but it is there and it exists. It is one’s approach to their piece and how they go about accomplishing it. It has to do with how you write it, how many drafts you do, as well as your revision process if you even have one. My writing process however has room for improvement. A summation of my writing process consist of heavy planning, one draft, and little revisions. Anne Lamott, Shirley Rose, and Kathleen Yancey all drew attention to major points through their writing pieces that support and dispute my writing process. Through their pieces they have found a way to inspire, inform, and entertain me all at the same time while passing along great information that
I am sitting in my bed, thinking about my process of writing as I am trying to go through it. It seems the more I think about it, the less I understand it. When I am writing, I don’t think. Which I know, sounds bad. But, I spend every single moment of every single day over thinking, over analyzing, and over assuming every aspect of my life. When I’m writing, I’m free from that for just a little bit. Until of course, my hands stop typing or the pencil (no pens- never pens) stops moving, then I’m right back on the carousel that is my brain. Heidi Estrem says, “...writers use writing to generate knowledge that they didn’t have before.” (Writing is a Knowledge-Making Activity 18). I believe my ability to write without an exact destination
There are various ways writers can evaluate their techniques applied in writing. The genre of writing about writing can be approached in various ways – from a process paper to sharing personal experience. The elements that go into this specific genre include answers to the five most important questions who, what, where, and why they write. Anne Lamott, Junot Diaz, Kent Haruf, and Susan Sontag discuss these ideas in their individual investigations. These authors create different experiences for the reader, but these same themes emerge: fears of failing, personal feelings toward writing, and most importantly personal insight on the importance of writing and what works and does not work in their writing procedures.
After the checking of the seven elements of writing, a writer can proceed by finding the potential and alternatives of the work. This is the stage where Murray emphasizes the fact that writers began to “mutter and whisper” as well as edit line by line (229). By doing this they began to see their strengths as how they can make it even stronger. Yet this may seem as the concluding stage, it’s not always
The narrator has been creative ever since she was a child, and her creativity just grew as she got older. “I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy-store” (Gilman 315). Now as a woman, she likes to express her creativity by writing. “I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me” (314). She feels that writing would help her feel better because it would let out her creativity that she likes so
Writing can be a very difficult process for those who do not know how to go about constructing
It is fascinating to me to read the articles “Why I Write,” by George Orwell and Joan Didion. These authors touch on so many different topics for their reasons to writing. Their ideals are very much different, but their end results are the same, words on paper for people to read. Both authors made very descriptive points to how their minds wander on and off their writings while trying to write. They both often were writing about what they didn’t want to write about before they actually wrote what they wanted too. In George Orwell’s case, he wrote many things when he was young the he himself would laugh at today, or felt was unprofessional the but if he hadn’t done so he would not of been the writer he became. In Joan Didion’s case she would often be daydreaming about subjects that had nothing to do with what she intended on writing. Her style of writing in this article is actually more interesting because of this. Her mind wandering all over on many different subjects to how her writing came to her is very interesting for a person like me to read. My mind is also very restless on many different unneeded topics before I actually figure some sort of combined way to put words on to paper for people to read. Each author put down in their articles many ways of how there minds work while figuring out what they are going to write about. Both of the authors ended ...
Ong, Walter. “Writing is a Technology that Restructures Thought.” Writing Material. Ed. Evelyn Tribble. New York. 2003. 315-335.
The ability to write well is not a naturally acquired skill; it is usually learned or culturally transmitted as a set of practices in formal instructional settings or other environments. Writing skills must be practiced and learned through experience. Writing also involves composing, which implies the ability either to tell or retell pieces of information in the form of narratives or description, or to transform information into new texts, as in expository or argumentative writing. Perhaps it is best viewed as a continuum of activities that range from the more mechanical or formal aspects of “writing down” on the one end, to the more complex act of composing on the other end (Omaggio Hadley, 1993). It is undoubtedly the act of