Sommers's research, while helpful, doesn't spend a ton of time considering how student revision strategies are affected by the pressures of grades or the constraints of assignments from hell. In line with that, Bishop adds, "less expert writers would usually draft less and hesitate more." How can we help student writers recognize the importance of global revision while still helping with more local issues, such as grammar, that they are most concerned about and may need for other courses? In other words, what strategies can we put together so that students can effectively revise and edit work without conflating the two?
Bishop notes, "Process writing workshops, contrary to labeling, continuously result in products." In what situations do you find yourself orienting your own writing toward product? Tight deadlines? Dreams of publication? Grades? Once you arrive at the need for a product, does that then push you more toward a dominant grammar for the sake of reaching your goal?
Hi Aram,
ReplyDeleteIn response to the second question, although it might seem counter intuitive to what we've been reading, I think its functionally impossible for us to try and separate a process oriented education from evaluations of the product. For me personally, I definitely find that most of my academic writing is oriented towards product because the product is realistically the best indicator of a functionally sufficient process. It would be hard to suggest that we can evaluate a process as "working well" if a writer's products are consistently sub-par. I think for many writers this means we unfortunately tend to lean product-oriented without recognizing that we might need to improve our process.