Practices And Processes Of Published Writers Analysis

Advice for Teachers

Jaedyn Poole

Professor Mohrenne

Practices and Processes of Published Writers

Rhetorical Situation: Giving suggestions on how to improve students’ writing processes

Exigence: Providing high school English teachers with advice on how to improve their curriculum in a way that will be beneficial to their students in college

Audience: High school English teachers that have an interest in improving their students’ writing process

Constraints: Might be offending to some English teachers: not enough time in the class to change the curriculum.

10/17/17

English teachers play a very valuable role in the education of high school students, because they teach them how to write. Writing is one of the most basic skills that every

However, the majority of students in my classes do not. I performed a study, inspired by Sondra Perl and Carol Berkenkotter, where I recorded myself as I wrote an essay. While analyzing my writing process, I realized that I, myself, do not do a lot of planning or brainstorming. After discussing in my English class the results of our study, I compared my results with other students in my class and found that planning is not a common task we go through. You might say this could be the result of a lack of correct teaching; all of us will claim that we have already learned how to use the outlines, concept maps, and flow charts. I think that we have not yet found a method that does not seem like a waste of time. A solution to this struggle is to incorporate planning into class time. Whether it be discussing the topic aloud in class with everyone or brainstorming silently, I think it would be beneficial to the students to get into the habit of planning before writing during class time because they are not going to do it any other time outside of class. Planning and brainstorming is an important aspect to writing and it should be presented effectively to high school

My revision process has always been lazy and nonexistent. Every paper that I write for one of my classes, I have the same basic steps: I write the paper the day before it is due, skim through it a couple of times after it has been hastily written, move some sentences around, and then just turn it in. But, my classmates can agree with me when I say that this lack of “effort” is not completely our faults. Throughout high school, we learned a few things here and there about the revision process and different methods that we could use, but we never used them. In fact, according to Nancy Sommers, her research on the revision process suggests that “it is not that students are unwilling to revise, but rather they do what they have been taught to do in a consistently narrow and predictable way” (Sommers 383). This is basically saying we found that this “consistently narrow and predictable way” of waiting until the last minute and doing minimal to no revisions resulted in a satisfactory grade. I think it would be beneficial to the students and to you to not waste your time on a boring lecture and to do a live action revision session on a sample essay. This allows them to see what they should be looking for in our actual essays. If this cannot fit into your teaching time or curriculum, maybe try extra revision sessions with students where you can tell them,