Annotated+Bibliography

= **Annotated Bibliography** =

**Barnet, Sylvan, and William E. Cain. //A Short Guide To Writing About Literature//. Eleventh. New York: Longman, 2009. Print**.

**Bartholomae, David "Inventing the University." //The Norton Book of Composition Studies.// Ed.** ** Susan Miller. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009.605-630.Print. **

The first part of David Bartholomae’s essay called “Inventing the University” focuses on the problems that arise for students when they attempt to assume an “academic” voice. He also points out that each academic voice, depending on the discipline, probably requires a whole new set of rules and guidelines. Bartholomae explains that the student must write in such a discourse “ […] as though he were easily and comfortably one with his audience, as though he were a member of the academy […] (606). The implications of this responsibility, of taking on such a role “of an authority whose authority is rooted in scholarship, analysis or research” is a difficult one (607). Therefore, the article describes how most students fail at speaking in an academic voice and instead choose a more familiar voice of authority such as one of a teacher or parent. This leads to a “Lesson on Life” rather than an academically sound discussion and analysis (608). So, Bartholomae points out that in spite of Linda Flower’s argument of the inexperienced writer as unaware of his or her reader, an inexperienced writer “[…] is not so much trapped in a private language as he is shut out from one of the privileged languages of public life, a language he is aware of but cannot control” (609). In other words, it is not that the student writer is unaware of the expectations of the academic reader, it is that the since the student writer is a student, he is not prepared for or knowledgeable of the discourse of academia.

In the second part of the article, Bartholomae continues to discuss the difficulty of a student writer “[...] imagin[ing] and writ[ing] from a position of privilege” (609). Since the students are not in such a position “learning […] becomes more a matter of imitation or parody than a matter of invention or discovery” (612). Therefore, Bartholomae suggests “to determine just what the [academic] community’s conventions are, so that those conventions could be written out, ‘demystified’ and taught in our classrooms” (615). If students must write within the context and conventions of specific disciplines, they must be given the knowledge and tools of the community of discourse in order to be able to successfully communicate and write in it. The final two sections of “Inventing the University,” Bartholomae spends viewing several essays written by student writers. He begins by describing the use of a commonplace in the majority of the example students’ essays he reads about creativity. This usage of a commonplace, which “[…] is a culturally or institutionally authorized concept or statement that carries with it its own necessary elaboration,” (608) by most student writers was only distinguishably successful when the student “[…] set themselves in their essays against what they defined as a more naïve way of talking about their subject” (620). It is the students who “claim an interpretive project of their own,” or who claim authority and privilege to speak that are deemed successful when writing (624).

Another issue in the student writing that Bartholomae is examining that he points out is mistakes on the technical level. He comments that it seems the writers who are given higher ratings and deemed more successful tend to have more technical mistakes. The source of this issue “[…] is the case of a student with the ability to imagine the general outline and rhythm of academic prose but without the ability to carry it out, to complete the sentences” (627). So Bartholomae is saying that more advanced writing has more advanced content and attempts to use more advanced language and syntactic structures that the writer is incapable of using correctly. This is another example of Bartholomae’s point that student writers are forced to assume a role in which they have no or very limited knowledge of, making it near impossible for them to assume such a role successfully. He concludes by advising teachers to be aware that initially students must be allowed to “crudely mimic” academic discourse before mastering it and he reminds teachers that “[...] our students must be our students” for they are not yet an experienced member of the academic discourse community (627).

**Bruffee, Kenneth A. "Collaborative Learning and the 'Conversation of Mankind.'"** **//The Norton Book//** **//of Composition Studies//. Ed. Susan Miller. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009.645-652.Print. **

Kenneth A. Bruffee begins his discussion of collaborative learning by introducing the tendencies and history of it. He continues to give a detailed rational for the benefits and necessity of collaborative learning. He begins his argument by illustrating the interdependency of social conversation and reflective thought: “We can think because we can talk, and we think in ways we have learned to talk” (549). He then equates thought to what he calls “internalized conversation” and asserts that in order “[t]o think well as individuals we must learn to think well collectively – that is, we must learn to converse well” (550). Bruffee furthers this assertion by linking it to writing explaining that the first step is social conversation, then the next is internalized conversation or thought, “and then by writing, we re-immerse conversation in its external, social medium” (551). Therefore, writing is determined by the way people think, which is determined by the way they converse. So, he says, as teachers “[...] our task must involve engaging students in conversations among themselves [...]” (551).

Bruffee then digresses to explain the implications of normal discourse, which is “ […] conversation within a community of knowledgeable peers” (552). This is the type of discourse that should be advocated, for it is the type students will most likely be required and expected to engage in once in their career field. Bruffee connects this normal discourse with the benefits of collaborative learning because it provides that same “[...] kind of social context: […] a community of knowledgeable peers” (553). Collaborative learning, specifically when “[...] structured indirectly by the [teacher's] task or problem,” will enable students to converse and talk about assignments and the subject (553).

Bruffee continues his advocation of collaborative learning with an assessment of the authority of knowledge. He concludes that “[...]knowledge must be a thing that people make and remake. Knowledge must be a social artifact. It is what together we agree it is, for the time being” (555). So, he explains that “[t]o learn is to work collaboratively to establish and maintain knowledge among a community of knowledgeable peers [...]” (555). Even creativity then must be a social progress when we do not agree on this communal knowledge anymore, he argues.

Knowledge-generating discourse is the type that enables creativity, and Bruffee calls this type of discourse abnormal. Inherently, abnormal discourse is essential to learning “[b]ut, ironically, [...] cannot be directly taught” (557). Instead, Bruffee suggests a reexamination of authority as a social construct and social decision rather than an objective truth. He argues that teachers then, only have authority “[...] from being certified representative of he communities of knowledgeable peers that students aspire to join [...]” (558). So, it is the job of teachers to conserve knowledge communities in students as well as facilitate change, “social transition and reacculturation” (559). Basically, it is the role of teachers to encourage both normal and abnormal discourse. Bruffee concludes by reasserting that teachers must think of “knowledge as socially justified belief” and engage students in that social conversation. Thus, effective collaborative learning must be “[...] a genuine part of student's educational development” (560).

**Covino, William A. “Rhetorical Pedagogy” //A Guide to Composition Pedagogies.// Ed. Gary Tate, Amy** **Rupiper, Kurt Schick. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 37-53. Print.**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">William A. Covino's article “Rhetorical Pedagogy” approaches a historical view of rhetoric and then follows the pedagogy into its present day interpretations. Covino explains that the concept of rhetoric is always in flux, but it is crucial to understand these changes and the history of rhetoric itself. He begins by giving a brief history of classical rhetoric where rhetorical truth was thought to be contingent concluding that the understandings of thinkers like Socrates, Pluto, Aristotle, etc. all have had a significant impact on rhetoric today. He then goes on to consider current-traditional rhetoric, which focuses on the development of pedagogy in the more recent 16th-19th centuries. Here, Covino identifies a shift to a more regulated method of teaching writing where “unity, coherence, and correctness [are] primary virtues” of rhetoric (44). Finally Covino explains 20th century rhetoric where rhetoric sheds its ability to profess unconditional truth and is instead seen as symbolic and interpretative. Covino identifies that this leaves room for an awareness of social context as well as a less rigid form of teaching writing for “...we have returned from the current-traditional compression of rhetoric to an expansive sense of its scope and a more fully inclusive and international appreciation for the range of backgrounds, needs, and desires that inform the reaching of reading and writing” (49). Currently, rhetoric idealistically has returned to the writer being responsible for being aware of whom the audience is and then appropriately responding based on this awareness.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">**Elbow, Peter. "A Method For Teaching Writing." College English 30.2 (1968): 115-125. Web. 29 September,** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">**2011.**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">In “A Method for Teaching Writing” Peter Elbow seemed to value a rhetorical pedagogical approach to writing, but addressed it in a clear way that gave insight to how to actually structure a classroom around such pedagogy. First, Elbow directly addressed the two common goals of writing instruction: the production of writing that is “true” and “correct.” He then goes on to suggest a third criterion to not only address, but instead make the main and initial focus of writing instruction. Focusing on this goal, Elbow hypothesizes, will naturally lead to students seeing the necessity for the other two. The third criterion he discusses is “whether [the writing] produces a desired effect in the reader” (115). He then goes on to give specific ways of arriving at this goal, suggesting methods that leave most of the work in the students' hands to discover their own criteria for judging good and bad writing: “The student's best hope for learning the teacher's criteria will come from enhancing and building up his //own// talents for distinguishing certain kinds of goodness in writing from certain kinds of badness” (117).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Elbow then goes on to address another aspect of good writing that he sees as vital to teach but admittedly abstract. That is the inclusion of the “self” or a powerful voice. An example of a way to teach voice that Elbow suggests it to have students read a piece of writing with a good strong voice present and have them attempt to write a piece of their own that embodies a similar voice (120). Also, Elbow suggests to simply insist to the student that their writing is unbelievable because it is lacking that personal voice. He finishes the article with the parallels his writing instruction methods have with Aristotle's attention to the speaker's voice and the speaker's audience as well as with some advice on functional ways to promote and execute such writing instruction in the classroom.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">**Faigley, Lester. "A Critique and a Proposal."** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">**//The Norton Book//** **<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">//of Composition Studies//. Ed. Susan Miller. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009.652-666.Print. **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Lester Faigley introduces his article “Competing Theories of Process: A Critique and a Proposal” by considering “whether a discipline devoted to the study of writing exists [...]” (652). He then discusses the implications of the seemingly universal process movement on the notion of writing as its own discipline but points out “that the conceptions of writing as a process var[ies] from theorist to theorist” and has resulted in three different schools on process composition: the expressive view, the cognitive view, and the social view (652). Faigley asserts his view that writing indeed deserves disciplinary status, but includes Aronowitz and Giroux's criticisms of such a status. He admits that they have a point especially with the separation of process theories into the different views he is about to describe; however, he argues instead that “disciplinary claims for writing must be based on a conception of process broader than any of the three views” (653).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Faigley first discusses and explains the expressive view of process composition theory. He begins by introducing some of the earliest pedagogical writing experiments including those of Rohman and Wlecke. These men recovered certain Romantic ideals that “good” writing must have these three qualities: integrity, spontaneity, and originality. Faigley explains that the quality of integrity or sincerity was realized to be “impossible to assess” so theorists such as Peter Elbow began to focus on spontaneity (654). Elbow adopted a model of “organic growth” to describe the writing process as a reflection of the creative imagination and a “'striving toward'” (655). This highly Romantic view of the writing process resulted in an ideal “piece of writing [that] would then seem fragmentary and unfinished” (655). Elbow solves this problem with the spontaneous process approach by stressing “revision as the shaping of unfinished material” (655). The originality quality of good writing was interpreted as teaching creative writing as well as an application to psychoanalysis to writing. The psychoanalysis view emphasizes self-actualization in aiding the creative process and argues that “personal development aids writing development […] with the result that better psychologically integrated people become better writers” (656). Faigley ends his discussion of the expressive view with Giroux's criticism that this view “ignores how writing works in the world [and] hides the social nature of language [...]” (656). Then Faigley moves on to the cognitive view of writing as a process.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">The cognitive view also spawned from Rohman and Wlecke but focused on their mention of heuristics and rejected the notion of writing as a linear process. Instead, Janet Emig “described composing as 'recursive' [...]” (656). Emerg also introduced social science-like research into the composition field and soon these new writing researchers turned to “two […] sources of cognitive theory” (657). The first source was cognitive-development psychology, which examines several reasons for the difficulty of imagining an audience for young writers. The second source, American cognitive psychology, fueled the research of theorists like Flower and Hayes who claimed “[...] that composing processes intermingle, that goals direct composing, and that experts compose differently from inexperienced writers” (657). These theorists believe that the key to figuring out how best to teach writing lies in an assumption that human brains work like computers and research can uncover the workings of “'a very simple information processing system'” (658). Again, Faigley includes Giroux's criticisms of this view which are that writing “is not universal but social in nature and cannot be removed from culture” (658).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Faigley then moves on to the social view and makes an admittedly overgeneralized but reasonably adequate assumption about this view: “human language (including writing) can be understood only from the perspective of a society rather than a single individual. Faigley then highlights four separate lines of research within the social view including poststructuralist theories of language, the sociology of science, ethnography, and Marxism. Basically, the social view decides that “any effort to write about the self or reality always come in relation to previous texts” and the surrounding society (660). The Marxist view is the specific view that Giroux belongs to, which criticizes other theorists “for their lack of political sophistication” and for their lack of attention to oppression (661).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Faigley concludes with an assertion that since “ […] social and historical forces shape the teaching of writing” the process movement “ […] must take a broader conception of writing [...]” so we can “reinterpret and integrate each of the theoretical perspectives [...]” (662). Basically, so as to avoid a rejection of process pedagogy entirely, theorists must take on a historical approach, which would apply to all three views. Faigley's historical approach applies to the expressive view in that “[...] the possibilities for individual expression will be affected my major technological changes in progress” (662). It applies to the cognitive view “by demonstrating the historical origins of an individual writer's goal” and the social view because “written texts become instruments of power” historically (662-663). Finally, Faigley concludes that writing will only reach disciplinary status when the writing process is recognized as, as Stanley fish says, “'contextual rather than abstract, local rather than general, dynamic rather than invariant'” (663).


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Flowers, Linda and John Hayes. "The Cognitive of Discovery:Defining a Rhetorical Problem." **<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">**//The Norton Book//** **<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">//of Composition Studies//. Ed. Susan Miller. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009. 467-478. Print. **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">In the essay titled “The Cognition of Discovery” written by scholars Linda Flowers and John Hayes, it discusses how writers (novice and expert) should established a sets goals before they write. Flowers and Hayes call the process: “a progressive representation of their goals as they write” (472). The four goals for writers consist of: “focusing on the effect the paper will have on the reader, establishing a relationship with the reader, building a coherent network of ideas to create meaning, and composing conventional features of written text” (Flower and Hayes 472). Out of all these goals, I believe the most important one is: “building a network of ideas to create meaning”. To start this goal writers sometimes: “explore what they want to know about their topic and then write it down” (Flowers and Hayes 473). For me, this goal is extremely the hardest goal to accomplish in the writing process, because it is extremely hard to synthesize ideas to create an original paper. The most basic form of writing is when student writers research an idea, and put those ideas collectively in a paper. They do not examine and analyze the idea thoroughly, and because they disregard this process, they fail to develop their own original thesis for the paper. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Another problem that writers encounter when trying to establish a coherent thesis, is when they try to form new concepts from old ideas. “Writers are consciously attempting to probe for analogues and contradictions, to form new concepts, and perhaps even to restructure their old knowledge of the subject” (Flowers and Hayes 474). Sometimes, writers do not realize that valuable information is stored right in their minds, and in order for them to retrieve these ideas, writers must go through a cognitive process. The cognitive process can consist of jotting down ideas that relate to the concept; word association is a good example of this technique. When I write, I never want my ideas to be cliché or overused, it usually takes me a while to create new ideas and then formulate them on paper. This is why I am extremely sympathetic to those who steal ideas from others and then present them as their own.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">**Fulkerson, Richard. “Four Philosophies of Composition//.” The Norton Book of Composition Studies//. Ed.** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">**Susan Miller. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009. 430-435. Print.**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">In Richard Fulkerson’s “Four Philosophies of Composition,” he explores these four philosophies that he bases off of M.H. Abrams’s //The Mirror and the Lamp//. The four philosophies of composition summarized by Fulkerson include formalist, mimetic, expressionist, and rhetorical. He first describes the formalist theory as valuing a formulaic approach to such as specifying lengths, perfect grammar, etc. The expressionist theory on the other hand tends to value journal writing, writing on personal subjects, and a personal voice. The mimetic theory stresses a connection between good thinking and good writing. This philosophy suggests the issue behind poor writing is either that the student did not think the topic through thoroughly or the student simply did not know enough about the topic. Therefore, this theory highlights detailed research as being necessary for good writing. Finally, the final theory that Fulkerson discusses is rhetorical, which is the philosophy that good writing is writing that accurately addresses the appropriate audience. After summarizing each theory, Fulkerson goes on to discuss the thought that each theory certainly does not need to be exclusive from one another. He suggests that problems arise in teaching though, when teachers assess writing based on theories that are seemingly different than what may have been conveyed in the prompt or assignment.

**Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. //They Say, I Say The Moves That Matter In Academic Writing//. Second. New York and London: W W Norton & Co Inc, 2010. Print.**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">The rhetorical pedagogy book "They Say/I Say": The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing', by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein provides students and instructors with easy and clear writing templates to help novice writers in the writing. This rhetorical book emphasizes the importance of writing for an audience, and it outlines effective ways to do so. The beginning of the book demystifies different ways to interpret and write about literature. The middle of the book talks about responding to a text, and the writers suggest that an author’s should explain the work’s meaning style and structure. When writing about a text’s meaning: “you need to do more than simply assert that you disagree with a particular view, you must also offer persuasive reasons why you disagree” (pp.57-58). The last few chapters of the book critiques formalist approaches to writing about literature; it discusses how socialist view literature: “Although academic writing does rely on complex, sentence patterns and on specialized, disciplinary vocabularies, it is surprising how often such writing draws on language of the streets popular culture, our communities and home” (128). It suggests that a writer should appeal to their intended audience and write expressively in their academic papers.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">**Harris, Joseph. "The Idea of Community in the study of Writing."** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">**//The Norton Book//** **<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">//of Composition Studies//. Ed. Susan Miller. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009. Print. **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Joseph Harris begins by sharing his own personal story of being part of two conflicting communities or cultures simultaneously. He describes it as a sense “[…] of overlap, of tense plurality, of being at once part of several communities and yet never wholly a member of one” (749). He goes on to support the efforts of other theorists like Bartholomae who have pointed to the communal efforts of writing rather than individual, private matters. Harris agrees, “[o]ur aims and intentions in writing are thus not merely personal, idiosyncratic, but reflective of the communities to which we belong” (749). However, his complaint is that these two opposing views tend to completely polarize all writing discussion into the community view versus individual view. He is also critical of the academic community’s lack of any concreteness or tangible existence.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Harris goes on to prove that a university discourse community is merely “[…] a vague remove from actual experience” (751). Many people speak of such a community, but it seems that no one can actually identify its characteristics. In fact, Harris highlights that in the actual university there are several disciplinary communities; it is “[…] a cluster of separate communities” (750). Therefore, he asserts that the academic discourse community becomes “hypothetical and suggestive, powerful yet ill-defined” (751) and this results in the term becoming “an empty and sentimental word” (749).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Since the university discourse community is so abstract, Harris questions how a student is to “’ […] learn to speak [that] language’” (753). Initially, it seems that the only way to do this is for the student to completely separate him or herself from the original community as Harris’ inclusion of Bizell’s argument suggests: The student must be “completely alienated from some other, socially disenfranchised discourses […]’” so one can “go native” in university discourse (753). Harris however, has a different viewpoint of such a black and white switch. He instead argues for students to “[…] be encouraged towards a kind of polyphony – an awareness of and pleasure in the various and competing discourses that make up their own” (755). He agrees with Min-zhan Lu that “[t]he task facing students […] is not to leave one community on order to enter another, but to //reposition// themselves in relation to several continuous and conflicting discourses” (755) Harris sees the importance of exposing students to the multiplicities of communities everybody is part of and having them reflect on the conflicts and implications of this. He also urges to refrain from “[…] presenting academic discourse as coherent and well-defined […]” and instead promotes a city metaphor that emphasizes that “[o]ne does not need consensus to have a community” (756).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">**Howard, Rebecca Moore. "Collaborative Pedagogy."** **<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">//A Guide to Composition Pedagogies.// Ed. Gary Tate, Amy Rupiper, Kurt **<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">**Schick. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Print.**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">In her essay titled “Collaborative Pedagogy”, Rebecca Moore Howard discusses different methods of Collaborative Pedagogy, and one of those methods is called Collaborative Learning. Collaborative learning can work two ways: a student can work with a tutor, who assumes the role of an instructor to work one-one with the students, or a student can learn from their peers, by collaborating with their classmates on assignments. Collaborative learning is controversial; many theorists “regard collaboration as plagiarism” (58); they generalize this method as a form of cheating. Most teachers may agree that this is a form of cheating, because sometimes students allow other students and tutors to do their work for them. In her essay, Howard discusses how opponents of writing tutors believe writing centers challenge teacher’s authority: “the writing center’s response center’s response to such suspicions has been to embrace pedagogy of non-interventionism that precludes both the appropriation of student texts and challenge to teacher’s authority occasioned by questioning their judgment of a writer’s work” (58). I disagree with this statement made about writing tutors; I believe writing centers can offer help to students in ways that teachers cannot. For instance, tutors are able to help students individually, unlike teachers who cannot afford the time to cater to students independently.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Another form of collaborative learning is called group learning. In this form of learning, students are able to work in small groups to discuss a text or to write a paper together. This is my favorite form of collaborative pedagogy, because it gives students a chance to be autonomous in the classroom. In the article, Howard discusses her views about group collaborations: “One of the guiding principles of small-group pedagogy is the effort to relinquish teacher control. Students can teach each other; more importantly, together they can discover things that individually they might not” (59). Student groups are very effective, and with this form of collaborative pedagogy students are able to problem solve together, which makes learning discovery easier and active. By learning cohesively, students are able to develop learning methods together, monitor each other’s progression, and help each other formulate ideas.

**Sommers, Nancy. "Responding to Student Writing." //College Composition and Communication//. 33.2 (1982): 148-156. Print**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">In the article titled “Responding to Student Writing” written by Nancy Sommers it discusses effective strategies when responding to student writing. Sommers first discusses why comments are important and she gives useful ways to comment on student writing. She states in her essay: “comment creates the motive for doing something different in the next draft; thoughtful comments create the motive for revising” (149). A student is not going to become a better writer if they do not receive useful and helpful comments that are both rhetorical and non-formalist. Sommers believes teachers should use a commenting scale when responding to student writing; teachers should focus on what is the most important problem in the text, and not weigh so heavily on grammar and organization. One finding Sommers found from her empirical study was that teachers are not text-specific when evaluating their students’ work: “The comments are not anchored in the particulars of the students’ text, but rather are a series of vague directives that are not text related” (152). When teachers evaluate, sometimes they give arbitrary responses to their students; Sommers wants teachers to be specific and precise when they respond to their students’ writing.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">**Sommers, Nancy. “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers//.” The Norton Book//** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">**//of Composition Studies//. Ed. Susan Miller. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009. 323- 346. Print.**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">In “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers,” Nancy Sommers compares student writers and experienced writers understanding of revision. She points out that in “linear conceptions of the writing process revision is understood as a separate stage at the end of the process” (323). She also emphasizes that it is “the possibility of revision [that] distinguishes the written text from speech” emphasizing the vitality of full comprehension of this part of the process (324). Sommers then goes on to summarize her findings of the strategies student writers use to revise. According to Sommers research “[t]he students understand the revision process as a rewording activity” (326). Students approach the revision as a way to make grammatical and lexical changes. Reevaluating the main ideas, organization or anything on the global level of their writing does not really seem to be an option for the student writers Sommers interviewed. These students, she explains, do not have any tools or methods to revise on this larger level. In contrast, Sommers reported that the experienced writers' “primary objective when revising [is] finding the form or the shape of their argument” and that rewriting is a “constant process” for them (330). Sommers concludes that “[i]t is a sense of writing as discovery – a repeated process of beginning over again, starting out new – that the students failed to have” when facing the revision process (331).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">**Tobin, Lad. “Process Pedagogy.” //A Guide to Composition Pedagogies.// Ed. Gary Tate, Amy Rupiper, Kurt** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">**Schick. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 1-18. Print.**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Lad Tobin spends the length of his article entitled “Process Pedagogy” decoding and advocating just that, process pedagogy. He discusses how he was a product of current-traditional writing instruction and the effects it had on his writing ability and his interest in writing and teaching it. It was not until after reading authors who study composition including Peter Elbow, that Tobin reevaluated his methods of teaching writing and his lack of evaluation of his own composition process. He embraced a new view of writing as “...not linear but 'recursive'” and began identifying that “writers did not think and then neatly transmit that complete thought; instead the writing helped them clarify their thinking, just as in a messy, back-and-forth way, the thinking led to more writing” (11). Tobin then describes how he went to work to phase in a process pedagogy to his composition courses and began by giving his students an assignment that allowed them to write on any topic without fear of receiving a grade for the assignment. He admits that this first assignment did not result in overall excellent writing but did allow him to assume a new role as a teacher: “My primary job was not to tell the writer where she had gone wrong or right but to help her see what she had accomplished and what the essay might become in its next incarnation. I was now reading not for error and assessment but for nuance, possibility, gaps, potential” (6). Tobin discovered this method was helpful for student writers for they could now be viewed as writers that produced interpretable texts. He also addresses though, that despite being process-oriented a product is still desired and necessary.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Tobin also addresses different theories within process pedagogy including expressivism cognitive, social, and Marxist as defined by Lester Faigley, but recognizes more overlap in such theories especially in the practical setting: “...the differences in theory are less clear and less significant in the classroom, where most practitioners borrow liberally from research of various kinds...” (10). Tobin also addresses many objections to process pedagogy including its tendency to become just as regimented as a current-traditional approach, its failure of teaching basic conventions to new writers, and its failure to make a writer aware of the social contexts in which he or she is immersed. While giving crediting to some of this opposition, Tobin blames misinterpretation and transformation of the process pedagogy by teachers rather than flaws in the method itself. He also advocates “pedagogical diversity” in a classroom setting in order to compensate for any shortcomings inevitable in any one pedagogical approach and concludes that although he is still committed to a process approach, he recognizes a need for other approaches to be incorporated into his teaching methods.