Dissonance in Writing

Nancy Sommers’, in “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers,” focuses on the differences between writers at these different stages. She centers on the idea that the main difference between student writers and experienced writers is their understanding and ability to revise. Sommers’ summarizes this point by saying, “Because the principal difference between these two groups is the amount of experience they have had in writing” (380), new writers often focus on small issues within their writing while experienced writers better understand the concept of revision. Rather than “revising” based on meaning, student writers tend to think of “the revision process as a rewording activity,” and their “predominant concern . . . is vocabulary” (380). Overall, it makes sense the experienced writers are better able to define and use revision strategies more effectively. Many student writers get caught in the idea that “sounding smart” equals being smart, and they spend revision time rewording their writing to “sound” better, rather than focusing on clarifying the meaning of their work.

In contrast, Sommers explains how experienced writers better use revision to improve their work. According to her, experienced writers do not consider revision to be the act of simply rewording, rather they create and revise multiple, separate drafts of their work. Sommers states that experienced writers even use multiple drafts for separate purposes: “A first draft are scattered attempts to define their territory and in the second draft is to begin observing general patterns of development” (384). The main difference between student and experienced writers is that experienced writers “seek to discover meaning in the engagement of their writing, in revision” (386). These experienced writers revised based on meaning; they make big-picture changes that alter and clarify the meaning of the whole work, rather than the meanings of individual words or sentence-level issues.

Sommers’ piece makes me think of myself as an experienced writer compared to my First-Year Composition students. As I grew as a writer, I too switched from sentence-level issues to meaning-focused issues. As an experienced writer, it is often easy to look at my new writers and wonder why they do not see the big issues that plague writing. As a teacher, I try to teach them to be detail-oriented in their writing, but it is also true that they do not quite understand how to gauge the clarity of their meaning. They often focus on “sounding smart” and feel that is what makes their writing better. For many students, writing is simply about getting through and passing the class. They do not write to discover meaning, and they do not rewrite beyond changing minor details. It is difficult to pull them out of these habits and convey to them the importance of clarifying meaning in their writing. Many students begin writing by writing as they speak and changing the vocabulary to “improve” the academic-sound of the paper.

Sommers points out the differences between speech and writing. In First-Year Composition, we teachers attempt to do this as well. Often, we use the example of language and code-switching to encourage students to think of the genre and the audience of their works.

However, I never considered writing and speech the way that Sommers does. Sommers claims that the difference between writing and speech is the idea of revision (387). One something has been spoken, there is no revision, only “afterthought.” While I understand Sommers’ point – that afterthought and revision are not the same – I think that afterthought is somewhat inherent in revision. E.M. Forester is attributed to the quote, “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” This applies to writing in a much more direct way, but afterthought is much the same. Obviously speaking out loud does not allow for seamless edits and revisions, but speaking is often the same as a first draft – it puts thoughts into the world and allows the speaker to hear and consider their own points, much like writing them on paper. While writing appears as more of a seamless revision process, it often begins the same way as speech: write until you discover your direction, add afterthoughts and revisions.

The most striking part of Sommers’ piece is the idea that “Good writing disturbs: it creates dissonance. Students need to seek the dissonance of discovery.” The writer in me loves the idea that “good writing disturbs,” loves the idea of dissonance in writing. Dissonance is normally sound, normally related words like “cacophony,” “grating,” “jarring.” So even though Sommers draws a line between speech and writing, the common denominator seems to be that we should feel and hear the discord in our own writing, in our construction of ideas. We should write to explore our mindsets and skills, and ultimately challenge ourselves to discover. In this regard, Sommers very much reminds me of Peter Elbow and his belief in what the writing classroom should be: a place free of grades, where students are left to write and rewrite, to discover themselves as writers. While Sommers’ idea of this is more reserved, somewhat more applicable in an academic setting, it is still hard to bridge the gap between writing to discover and writing to earn a grade – especially with students who are not keen to consider themselves Writers.