Maynard 1

Skyler Maynard

Professor Gardiakos

ENC1101

16 July 2021

Reading Response for Sondra Perl

Many studies have been done to understand the composing process of writing, but

it remains largely unknown. Sonda Perl tries to understand the composing process of

writing by using students considered unskilled as the basis of her experiment. She does

this because she believes past experiments are flawed for two reasons: the lack of graphic

evidence and patterns, and the use of skilled writers as the subject of the experiment. By

continuing to research the topic in a similar manner, the problem of trying to understand

the writing process will remain. To counteract these issues, Sondra chooses to study

students considered unskilled by their teachers. The students go through five 90-minute

sessions that have them compose aloud and externalize their thinking process. In these

sessions, the researcher assumed a noninterfering role, and the responses by the student

were recorded. At the end of the experiment, the students’ written works were collected

and typed, keeping the original style and errors (if any). Then, the writings were

separated into three miscue categories: speaking complete ideas but omitting certain

words during writing, pronouncing words with plural markers or other suffixes

completely but omitting these endings during writing, and pronouncing the desired word

but writing a homonym, an approximation of the word or personal abbreviation of the

word on paper. None of the research explains what they wrote, but how the students

observed chose to write. The process Sondra chose to use during her research reminds me
 Maynard 2

of my own process when writing. Whenever I sit down to write, I initially start by writing

down all my thoughts on the topic. Since I’m usually alone, I do this to substitute for

verbally discussing it with someone. By doing this, I’m able to have a clear

understanding of what I want to include in my writing, and what order it should be in.

Afterward, I change the wording of my written thoughts to suit the paper I’m writing.

Anne Lamott describes the “voices in your head” during the writing process as

different characters inside your head. Each one has a different role in the writing process,

some are meant to negatively critique you, and others are meant to encourage you to

continue going. For example, Lamott mentions the “vinegar-lipped Reader Lady,” who

attacks how interesting the subject is or not. Personally, I don’t have many voices in my

head when I’m writing unless I’m experiencing writer’s block. Whenever I’m

experiencing writer’s block, I have a couple of negative voices in my head. They don’t

necessarily have a face or name to them because they’re more so an emotion than a

thought in my head. For example, whenever I feel pressured to write something, I feel

this unwanted weight inside my head and I’ll be reminded of the pressure I felt

throughout high school. There isn’t any voice or commentary on my actual writing, but

instead, there are feelings on my writing. For Lamott, she is able to silence her voices by

visually imagining muting them. Personally, I can’t silence my voices by imagining

muting them. Instead, I have to evaluate if what they’re saying is actual legitimate

criticism or not. After I’m able to understand if it’s legitimate criticism or not, I’m often

times able to silence the voices in my head. If it’s a particularly difficult day, I might

have to take a break from writing altogether, and come back to it later, but this is quite

rare for me. From personal experience, I think I experience the worst of my negative
 Maynard 3

voices when I first begin writing. Something about writing on a blank document is

extremely stressful to me. This is one of the reasons why I began writing down all my

thoughts before beginning my first draft. To counteract this further, I always have

multiple documents for my essays, one that has my plan, one for the first draft, then one

for the final draft. This way I don’t feel like I could destroy anything I’ve written.
 Maynard 4

Works Cited

Lamott, Anne. Writing about Writing, by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, Fourth ed.,

Bedford Books St. Martin's, 2020, pp. 87–92.

Perl, Sondra. Writing about Writing, by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, Fourth ed.,

Bedford Books St. Martin's, 2020, pp. 93–120.