assignment 1 - Draft #2

Assignment #1- Draft of option #1.

In Nancy Sommers article it seems that there is a significant difference on how student writers and experienced writers view revision. I was taught to revise and write in school from my English classes. My teachers always focused on grammar, punctuation, lexical repetition and structural errors rather than what I had to say in my paper. I was either told or it was written in red ink on my paper to “fix”, “change” or “re-do” my paper. This teaching has caused me to focus with more micro issues like the student writers in Sommers article rather than my ideas, points or arguments like the experienced writer. Reading this article was an eye opener for me to reflect on myself to see how and why I write the way that I do when dealing with the concept of revision and writing papers.

Therefore, English courses caused me to focus more on lexical repetition as opposed to conceptual repetition as Sommers wrote in article. “The students place a symbolic importance on their selection and rejection of words as the determiners of success or failure for their compositions….” From my past experience I would agree to the above quote. I would write for the assignment and conform to what I thought the English teacher wanted rather than validating my creative beliefs and my ideas. I feel conceptual revisions are lost in the process of writing because as a student writer you are more focused on word choice, sentence run-ons and fragment sentences etc. For me, this experience has caused a stigma when I have to write an English paper. I personally become stressed out, have the thought of “what’s the point, I will get a “C” anyways and lose all interest in writing.

As a student writer English writing does not seem creative and it goes with the experience that I have had in the past with English teachers. My past English teachers would always make comments on my papers “ too many passive words” or cross out words or circle misspelled words in red or black ink. The English teachers that I have experienced never included positive feedback causing me not to try my best and maintain a “C” average. Per Sommers article the experience writer states "My first drafts is usually very scattered. In rewriting, I find the line of argument. After the argument is resolved, I am much more interested in word choice and phrasing.” I really liked this line because I never really actually got to put any thought really into any of my past English classes and what revision really means. This loss of self ends up as writers block

Historically English students are taught structurally and my perspective is very similar to other student writes as described by Sommers, for example "re-doing means cleaning up the paper and crossing out" and another example described by Sommers "reviewing means just using better words and eliminating words that are not needed." The English stigma that creates lack of creativity or passion to write contributes to a student writer to become fearful of writing due to no positive reinforcements of conceptual writing

English Stigmatism that I have experienced has created has created a lack of passion or desire to write.