Homework: September 23rd

Read "Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers" (WaW 576-89)

QDJ 1, 3, 5, and 7 (WaW 587-88)

Read "The Maker's Eye: Revising Your Own  Manuscripts" (WaW 610-14)

Questions for Discussing and Journaling

p. 610-14 1, 3, 5, and 7

1. Sommers says that the language students use to describe revision is about vocabulary, suggesting that they "understand the revision process as a rewording activity" (para. 9). How is that different from the way she argues that revision should be understood?

-Revision is rewording because it is the afterthought after the writing process, and it should be understood because if a person does not know what revision is then they do not know that there is an afterthought. The theories that she has listed all conclude to it being an ending stage to the writing process. That is what it is understood as, but Sommers thinks otherwise. Revision is an afterthought in speech just like it being distinct in the linear models or else, it is counterproductive.

3. In her introduction and in analyzing students' description of revision, Sommers focuses quite a lot on the difference between speech and writing. In other words, what is she saying that difference is between two, and why is this difference relevant to how we understand revision?

- Revision is the afterthought. Well, when you are giving a speech, there is an afterthought that cannot be said, but with writing, it can be put into the paper since you have time to let revision happen. Revising is going back and changing words, "Rewording", or it is changing a phrase statement.

5. What do you think Sommers means when she says that for experienced writers, revision is based on a non-linear theory in which a sense of the whole writing both precedes and grows out of an examination of the parts? What does she mean by "the whole writing"? What does it mean for writing processes to be non-linear (not a straight line of progress from beginning to end)? And why do you think that experienced writers see writing as non-linear but student writers tend to see writing as linear (pre-write_write_edit)?

- Non-linear writings do not have a sense of direction. They are usually everywhere, and linear has more distinct stages and steps to go by. This is why student writers know a linear way of writing more than they do a writing based upon non-linear. Students have always been taught the same writing process. First there is the outline, then the draft and the student may write that multiple times. Then, the final draft comes. Most students think that it is easier to write inside of an outline because it keeps the person on topic and inside the lines of what the teacher wants or asks for.

7. Sommer's research, she says, makes her believe that student revision practices don't reflect a lack of engagement, "but rather that they do what they have been taught to do in a consistently narrow and predictable way." Where do you think students got the idea that they should see writing as transcribing and revising as changing words? Does this match what you have been taught about writing and revising? If not, what has been different in your experience?

- It has definitely been matched to what I have been taught. Most teachers would read my final draft and tell me to change many words in my writings because they were not professional or formal enough to present or that the paper does not fall in the guidelines of the topic or of the outline that we had received from them. We had to do the same thing in every paper that we had written and it was predictable. We were taught to make an outline, start writing out a rough draft, a final rough draft, a final draft, then a typed out final draft to turn in. This would always keep us inside the guidelines that we had to follow. It was also based upon the rules for writing. Our teachers would read this book on writing, and that is what the teachers would follow as there daily lesson plan when we were writing out our outlines and drafts. My teachers have never talked about revision, but we did have to go back and change certain things in our papers due to the rules of writing.