Sommers' Responding to Student Writing

As I read this article, I could easily place myself in the shoes of high school students, anxiously awaiting the return of their first drafts from their teachers. All too often after patiently waiting for a paper, I have received commentary that includes very little suggestions on content and purpose. Rather, grammatical errors are circled and sentence structure is noted. As author Nancy Sommers states in her article, Responding to Student Writing, “we want to know if our writing has communicated our intended meaning and, if not, what questions or discrepancies our readers see that we writers, are blind to” (p373). I realize that providing commentary on a student’s writing is quite times consuming, however, students need appropriate and helpful commentaries in order to further develop their writing skills.

Sommers states that “without comments from their teachers or from their peers, student writers will revise ain a consistently narrow and predicatbale way” (p373). I hate to admit but I know there have been (very few!) times when I have only written a draft of a paper, turned it in for critiquing, and turned in the same paper without making any changes. The most unfortunate part about this sometimes my grade on the same exact paper has improved!

Just as the text suggests, I have seen much improvement in my pieces of writing that have had a direct, genuine revision of the piece as a whole. Comments such as these help me (and other students) to not take comments too literally, ultimately allowing me to be detailed and organized rather than narrow and dull.

Not to suck up to the liking of Professor Martin, but I very much appreciate the commentary she has provided me on my writing. I have visited her several times to edit and revise pieces of writing and it is easy to see that her commenting style emulates what the author dictates as good writing commentary and revision.