SQR 1

Understanding Composition

   Throughout the article, Sondra Perl makes some observations about the writer’s composing process. In the article she talks about retrospective, projective structuring, and how she notices a recursive process in writing.

   Perl refers to recursive as writers continuously going back and forth in a composition process. She mentions the following recursive elements; rereading, key word and felt sense. Rereading may happen after every few phrases, after every sentence or after a chunk of information. A key word about the topic is the word that a writer uses like a switch to get going again. Perl describes felt sense as what the words evoke in the writer and how it manifests through inner reflections and bodily sensations. She labeled the process of attending, of calling up a felt sense, and of writing out of that place, as retrospective structuring. Finally the author talks about projective structuring as the writers’ attempt to become readers… mentioning how the writer needs to have experienced what it means to be lost in a piece of writing or to be excited by it in order to become a reader. The author mentions how some writers focus too much on projective structuring, losing the connection between their writings and themselves.

   Sondra Perl talks about retrospective and projective structuring as the way writers’ attend their felt sense, place words upon a page and assess how the words will affect the reader.


Question 7
According to you, the plan-write-revise sequence in writing is equivalent to which process based on this reading?

    The plan-write-revise sequence is equivalent to a lineal process, where a writer knows how the composition is going to start and end. In this process a writer plans the direction of his/her composition, and once he/she is done composing he/she revises it to make sure that all the important points have been covered. In the article “Understanding Composing”, Perl mentions how many researchers including her, have questioned this traditional process, stating the idea that when a writer writes he/she doesn’t follow the strict patterns of plan-write-revise, instead a writer continuously relays on a recursive process as he/she writes. The recursive process is a continuous going back and forth in a composition, where the writer relies on these three recursive elements: rereading, key word and felt sense. It is important for the writer to pay attention to his/her felt sense in order to get his/her ideas on paper, and once the words are there, be able to shape them, by rereading and correcting the composition.