Response to “Intentions and Revisions” by Nancy Sommers

     Nancy Sommers “Intentions and Revisions” depicts the revision process, as implemented in the composition classroom as a “non-creative act” during which minor points are corrected but nothing of value is added to the writing.  She details a 3 year study between unskilled and skilled writers and discovers that there is a major difference in their evaluation and revision processes.  The unskilled writer seems inhibited by grammatical rules and approaches writing as if it needs to progress in a certain order—like the student, Rita, who rewrote her introduction 6 times and ended up with a result worse than some of the earlier drafts.  Rita clearly understood the importance of the thesis statement but her efforts to craft her opening paragraph actually obscured her argument by adding information unrelated to her thesis. 

     Skilled writers exhibit a different pattern.  Walter, a skilled writer, started with an informal structure that led into an anecdote which contextualized his thesis making it accessible to his audience. He was much more willing to work outside of the boundaries of “correct” writing understanding—from his experience—that the initial writing was a place to explore and experiment with language. 

     I think teachers’ tendency to correct grammar in initial drafts leads students to seek “correctness” above meaning.  Drafts returned to students with grammatical corrections teach them that they always have to turn in polished work rather than that initial drafts are about communicating their ideas and that they are working toward clear expression rather than grammatical accuracy.  Nancy Sommers article illustrates this point exactly and demonstrates how the emphasis on correctness can actually inhibit the growth of student writers.