Becoming a Writing Tutor

       Becoming a writing tutor is not as easy as i thought it might be.  I knew that it was not going to be simple but i had no idea about all the things I must remember while sitting next to that student.  Not praising them if their writing is very good, and to not be a therapist or a friend and talk off topic about the upcoming weekend or what happened last weekend.  Sometimes when you are sitting with a person for an hour if they come multiple times a week you can get sidetracked and it is going to be difficult to stay on topic and talk about only their writing. 
       Its is also a nervous feeling that is growing even more now that the time for tutoring is getting even closer.  The student's writing improvement skills are in my grasp, also maybe the determination if they pass or fail can be my fault.  There is a lot of pressure on me and I don't like being under pressure if its for someone else s outcome.  However i do fee very anxious and excited to help these writers improve their skill and pass the test they need to take.

Sondra Perl

Danielle Esposito

Teaching Writing ENG 220

9-18-11

            Sondra Perl is an English professor at Herbert Lehmann College and she is the founder of the New York City Writing Project.  Perl has been known to analyze writings, both unskilled and professional writing.  She also wrote a couple of books about writing and conducted a study.  Perl has contributed ideas, guidelines that have been considered one of the greatest tributes made to theorizing the writing process.

 Perl describes composing as a “Recursive process that entails rereading of small

units of text mid-way through writing with rewriting of short passages serving to move writers forward.”  She argued that composing involves backward and forward movements that allow writers to discover new things as they write and rewrite.  By using this process you will discover more of what is on your mind.  They are “exercises” that will help you perform what most great writers do naturally every time they write.  Perl’s questions how the writer writes, how does a writer come up with what they are writing? And what is going through their mind when they do?  Perl studied both professional and unskilled college writers and reviewed how well the vocabulary use was, how organized the writing was, how long the writer stood on topic and how well the thesis statement was answered (if there was any.)  Always remember to continue writing, even if you don’t have any idea of the subject or if you’re still on topic.  Stop a few times to ask yourself “What’s this about?” And always make sure your writing expresses what you exactly need to say.  By doing this with your work you notice your careless mistakes in your writing whether it be spelling, vocabulary, or running off topic this guideline helps people look over their writings and eliminate their mistakes as they write more following these rules.

            However Perl’s ideas sometimes do not work the same for everyone, or everyone’s situation.  What is true and the best thing to remember is that Perl states that “they are supposed to have flexibility, for you to use these rules in your own way.”  Not all people are able to follow strict rules for writing and not all people have the same outlook on writing.  Some people admire it some don’t, some people have different ways of organizing their data which needs to be taken into account. You should not follow the exact formation of words in Perl’s idea but that it is meant to be explored and adapted in different ways according to people’s situations and the different ways people express their writings.

            The discovery of this important guideline in composing was resulted in what was the most important idea Sondra Perl has contributed to the field of theorizing the writing process.  Perl used an innovative method to analyze her students asking them to verbalize all of their thoughts by writing.  In other words she made all her students talk to her about their thoughts while writing.  She then listened back to what she recorded and turned them into codes that could be used to analyze the students writing.  These codes broke the writing down into planning, editing, writing, and unrelated thoughts.  She figured out the time used by students in completing their writing.  She developed a scientific procedure to study people’s thoughts while writing.  As a result from this study she came up with the guide line to re read a short section of texts that halfway through your writing to help writers progress in a higher skill.

            Perl’s contribution to the field of theorizing the writing process is one of the most important contributions related to writing.  Perl broke down the psychological process of writing and helped many unskilled writers figure out and find a way to improve themselves and their writings.  She created simple guidelines and important methods for all writers to use in their own way.  The fact that these guide lines can be personalized to your own strengths and weaknesses makes it one of, if not the best contribution to the field of the writing process.

           

-Perl, Sondra. “Understanding Composition” December 4^th 1980. web. http://www.jstor.org/pss/356586.  College Composition and Communication.

-Blau, Sheridan “Book Review felt sense: Writing with the Body” 2004.web. http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resources/1988.  The Quarterly Vol. 26 No. 3.

-Elbow, Peter. “Sondra Perl’s Guidelines”  1987.web. http://www.focusing.org/perlprocess.html.   May 30, 2006, The Focusing Institute, 2003.