Spring to Sommers

Well, I finally got to reading the actual Sommers article we were assigned to read ("Responding to Student Writing" 1982), and I found it to be just as interesting as the other, yet much more informative.

As I began reading, I had to pause and ask myself: "Was I ever motivated to revise a paper, even when confronted with "thoughtful comments" (149) and the blessed opportunity to improve its final grade?" And honestly, I have to admit that I haven't always taken advantage of such opportunities, and unfortunately, such opportunities to revise have been few and far between- even in grad school.

Nevertheless, I found this article uniquely useful in that it diagnosed the primary problem - "a confusion of process and product" (154) - while also offering solid solutions grounded in the understanding and recognition that writing is a process comprised of a series of (often discrete) stages and that our comments should be tailored, synchronically, to address whatever stage in the diachronic process any given draft of a student's discourse is situated.

For example, if the hypothetical draft we're commenting on is only in the nascent stages of development, then certainly we don't want to waste our time or energy ("commenting on student writing consumes the largest portion of our time" 148) and the student's with persnickety comments about, for example, punctuation when the student's ideas are at best inchoate, while at worst, absolutely and utterly confusing; rather, we want to offer constructive feedback, feedback that will assist the student in further developing his/her ideas, feedback that is both specific and clear so that the student is sufficiently motivated to uncover and discover ("We need to show our students how to seek, in the possibility of revision, the dissonances of discovery" 156) the meaning s/he's been making.

The challenge for me will be setting aside my prejudices and biases long enough to approach any given student's text as a respectful reader, one who's simply trying to understand the meaning of what the writer has attempted, however haltingly and faultingly (?), to convey.