Nancy Sommers: Understanding Where Writing Comes From

I found Nancy Sommer's ideas on student awareness of their own potential and the possibilities inherent in writing interesting and right where my head has been since beginning this semester as a teacher.

The only point I find I'm not completely in agreement with is the dismissal of the connection between speech and writing. While I agree that writing has as its goal something deeper than everyday speech normally does, making the student look at the connection can still be beneficial. Many Basic Writers come into a composition classroom scared that what we will expect from them will be some painful, alien process. Reminding them that they are already confident language users in the form of speech - as well as the obvious written communication forms (texting, e-mailing, etc) is a way of establishing their agency from the start.

Anne Ruggles Gere, in "Writing Well is the Best Revenge," was saying even in 1978 that for students writing "is a means of demonstrating competence in subject matter rather than as an end in itself. They lack moti-vation to write well" (256). It is, I believe precisely because students don't understand the writing process and what is possible that they seldom see writing as having a "greater purpose" (Beard).

Gere suggests the answer is motivating the students by showing them how to use this process to "shout back" at a society that has left them feeling disenfranchised (257).