SQR3

Joshua Hernandez

ENG 1301

Trang Phan

9/12/10

SQR3 “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers’’

Nancy Sommers’ article “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers’’ show s the strategies of student writers and the strategies of experienced adult writers. Sommer shows us how “current models of the writing process have directed attention away from revision”. Which means that they show you the steps you need for writing a good piece, but the forget to tell you that you need to revise your piece when you are done writing it. For example she uses Vygotsky’s “First…Then…Finally” model to demonstrate that it fails to take into account the revision process. Sommers goes on to to say revision is a separate stage of writing which comes after the first or second draft.

Sommers studied the revision strategies of student writers figured out that students don’t use the word revision. They are not used to it, they are used to it being a word only the teacher said. The students used words like “Scratching out , cutting out, and to do over again.” Compared to experienced adult writers who don’t just look at words but the structures of sentences. Experienced adult writers cross out whole pages while student writers cross out words and sometimes sentences if they are an above average student.

Question: Why do you think student writers only revise words while experienced adult writers revise pages?

Response: I think that student writers only revise a few things because they don’t want to go through the whole process of rewriting a paper and don’t have the knowledge to look at sentence structures like experienced adult writers. When student writers revise they “scratchout and do over, and that means what it says. Scratching and cutting out. I read what I have out written and I cross out a word and put anotherword in; a more decent word or a better word. Then if there is somewhereto use a sentencethat I have crossedout, I will put it there." Compared to adult writers who look at the kernel of what I have written, the content, and then thinking about it, responding to it, making decisions, and actually restructuring it."