As a professor, writer and researcher, Sondra Perl often discusses what constitutes the writing process. Although these ideas vary from paper to paper, one idea has always remained constant in her discussions. The process that comes before and during writing is something she believes is vital to writing. The thought behind this process, called recursive writing, requires the writer to make use of several procedures in order to improve as a writer. Another important idea in relation to this process is to not only the reliance of basic skills when it comes to writing, but also to use what one feels is important.
In a study done by Perl, students at New York University were assigned to write on their most anxious moment as a writer. The purpose of this was to show these students how they create their own composing processes, also known as the writing process. During this exercise, Perl began asking herself several questions. "What basic patterns seem to occur during composing? What does this type of research have to tell us about the nature of the composing process?" (Perl 364). With these newly formed questions, she begins to question the conventional style of writing, which leads us to her support of the idea of recursive writing.
According to Perl, there are several elements that recursive writing consists of. The first is learning by writing. When writing, one must be able to go back and revise and correct mistakes. This way, the writer learns to improve from errors. By going back and rereading one’s work, reviewing becomes sort of second nature to the person. The second part involves looking at the topic for keywords or phrases. Using this step is important for many; recalling these words and going back to the topic can help a writer who has writers block into getting back on track. The third and final element seems to be the main focal point of her theory.
Known as felt sense, Perl explains her third step as “what happens when writers pause and seem to listen or otherwise react to what is inside them” (365). It isn’t something that happens to the writer physically, but what happens inside them to stimulate and motivate them. Using this generates concepts and ideas within the writer, stemming from experiences and feelings. As a result of this, Perl believes that writing comes more as a natural process and ideas begin flowing easily on paper. She calls this process; this felt sense, as retrospective structuring. Describing it as something that “is already there, inchoately, and brings whatever is there forward by using language in structured form” (Perl 367), we can see that retrospective structuring has a sort of association or correlation with how students write.
In ‘TESOL Quarterly”, Vivian Zamel, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston, best summarizes this correlation, stating:
Perl also found that writing was affected by the mode of discourse specified. Students wrote more and with greater fluency and satisfaction when their writing involved them personally, while they wrote with less facility when the writing was objectified. (197)
As mentioned, when a person can relate to the topic in some way, it becomes easier to write more fluently and with more enthusiasm. On the other side of the spectrum, Perl believes that those “who subscribe to the linear model find themselves easily frustrated when what they write does not easily correspond to what they planned or when what they produce leaves them with little sense of accomplishment.” (Perl 368). She believes those who only follow the traditional way of writing will end up finding it more difficult to write about the topic and won’t be satisfied with their work. She also notes that by doing so, you only end up hurting yourself, “cutting [the writer] off from the possibility of discovering something new.” (368)
After considering Perl’s ideas of recursive writing and retrospective structuring, we can see that connecting to what one’s writing is just as important as any other basic writing skills. This theory of using a writer’s felt sense helps him or her draw out feelings of motivation and enthusiasm with the topic at hand, allow for a more organic and natural feel to the person’s writing. This process did apply to even myself. During this paper, I felt that I couldn’t connect with what I was writing about, thus creating a sort of bland paper. Towards the end however, I began understanding what Perl was trying to say and began reflecting on my own experiences and feelings to explain the retrospective structuring, and eventually this paragraph. In short, Sondra Perl’s theory of felt sense and retrospective writing is just as important as basic techniques when it comes to writing.
Works Cited
Perl, Sondra. “Understanding Composing.” College Composition and Communication
Vol. 31, No. 4 (1980): 363-369. JSTOR. Web. 17 Sept. 2011.
Zamel, Vivian. “Writing: The Process of Discovering Meaning.” TESOL Quarterly
Vol. 16, No. 2 (1982): 195-209. JSTOR. Web. 18 Sept. 2011.
Your opening paragraph is basically good in terms of setting up your main idea. But two things draw you away from excellence. The first issue I found distracting here was that you repeat the word writing or writer six times, one time it even recurs within one sentence. Think recursively here. It feels at this point as if you didn't re-read your paper carefully. The repetition creates a feeling of redundancy for your reader. Also, be careful of errors like we find in this phrase: "is to not only the reliance of basic skills." Is there a missing word, extra word, or something out of order? What does this mean?? You seem to have good ideas and a good order of communicating them, but these things keep you from A-level writing.
ReplyDeleteEverything then goes really well for a few paragraphs. You handle quotes effectively, introduce and analyze them completely. You organize your thoughts well and lay them out clearly and naturally. In the felt sense paragraph, though, we get another odd sentence: "She calls this process; this felt sense, as retrospective structuring." I don't quite know what this is saying. It may be that you have a vocabulary pile-up here. You haven't quite finished dealing with felt sense yet, and you are introducing a completely new term, retrospective structuring. They are not exactly the same thing, otherwise there wouldn't be two different terms. Figure out the difference and then try to figure out how one fits into the other. And *right after* you introduce retrospective structuring, you go back to felt sense. My feeling is that you may be taking on too much by trying to introduce retrospective structuring. Do you really need it here? If so, handle it completely.
Your paper is about recursion. I always think it best to stay as close to your topic as possible, and in such a short paper, you may not need to make every connection that exists, but just stick to the most important ones. Felt sense seems good enough. But if you must discuss retrospective structuring, the you must slow down and tell us what it is. Define it. Be clear about the difference between IT and felt sense. THEN tell us how it relates to felt sense. This would take an additional two paragraphs.
OR maybe you want to re-tool the entire paper to be about the difference between felt sense and RS, or whatever...maybe there's another thesis lurking in here. Figuring out the diff btw felt sense and RS would be good work that would pay off for you later in the semester when we come back to Perl, but you also do not absolutely need it for this paper. You decide.
Also, since recursive writing is your focal point in this essay, keep recursion in mind for yourself. Read over this essay and make sure every thing you say is tied precisely and exactly to recursion. It is a key word I expect to see deployed often (but not redundantly!) I would also expect that whatever key words you use to define ti will also be of use in each paragraph as you continue to connect everything you say back to your main idea. If you change your main idea to something else, then everything I just said applies to that new main idea. Whatever it is, it must recur sensibly throughout your essay.
Overall, good paper. You structure pretty well, but need to work on some sentences and making this whole thing stick to the main idea more closely, and always define any new term introduced very precisely. And either deal with retrospective structuring entirely, or remove it from every part of this paper.