A+Writer's+Reference

**Overview**
Overall, //A Writer's Reference,// by Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers provides highschool students in grades 11-12 with a "jump-start" and preview into college level writing. With their more relaxed style of expressing the "How To's" for college writing, //A Writer's Reference// provides students with a more comfortable take on writing that most rigid writing handbooks do not. Not only do Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers elaboratley express and explain how to become a better writer but their text allows students to build confidence as writers while engaging in group activity and becoming more comfortable with the tools writers need on an everyday basis.

Composing & Revising
As they introduce the first section of their book, “Composing and Revising” Hacker and Sommers explain “Writing is a process of figuring out what you think, not a matter of recording already developed thoughts” this goes along with expresivist theorists.

Hacker and Sommers offer a very vague starting point for writers as they explain writers must first “asses the writing situation” as they “consider [their] subject, purpose, audience, available sources of information, and any assignment requirements” (3). Many writing handbooks describe the first step of writing as the “planning stage,” one that involves a thesis and an outline while jumping immediately into the writing process; however Hacker and Sommers discuss the idea of thinking about and assessing an assignment first. “Instead of just plunging into a first draft, experiment with one or more techniques for exploring your subject: talking and listening, reading and annotating texts, listing, clustering, freewriting, asking questions, keeping a journal, blogging” (4).

Not only do Hacker and Sommers offer a “cushion” for students to fall back on if they become stuck in their writing process but the two intertwine a formalist approach by making sure students still stick to the requirements assigned to them, but they offer an expressivists ideas to help students engage in their writing more with a expresvists outlook rather than a formalists outlook —to find more depth, more excitement, and a stronger voice as they suggest the idea of freewriting, blogging and journals. Not only does this allow for students to express themselves rather than sticking to a ridged outline process it also allows students to explore multiple medias such as blogging on the internet, keeping journals, audio recordings etc. Because students may be unaware of these various planning styles due to the ridged a formal approaches often taught in the classroom setting, hacker and Sommers do a wonderful job as they explain and even offer examples of each outlet for their readers.

As Hacker and Sommers offer techniques for students to use during the revision for their own papers, they also offer tips and guidelines on how to become a better peer reviewer as well.

· "View yourself as a coach, not a judge. Work with the writer to identify the draft's strengths and areas for improvement” (22).

(This allows for personal relationships to grow and may even bring forward the idea of discourse community as it allows for one student to learn about another’s discourse community as they discuss the origin of their original ideas).

· “Where possible, give specific compliments. Let the writer know which of his or her strategies are successful” (22)

The idea of positive praise to build a student writers confidence is essential as Mina P. Shaughnessy explains in her essay, “Introduction to Errors and Expectations, A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing,” by the time students reach the collegiate world they express a certain resentment towards writing because of the amount of negative feedback they received with previous writing assignments. As high school educators it is important to prepare our students, to teach them all the advantages having confidence while writing may offer. By offering positive feedback we are able to assess their writing while building their confidence in a way that will greatly influence and affect them for the entirety of their writing careers.

As Sommers notes in her essay, “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers,” there is a large majority of student writers that refuse to use the term //revision// or //rewriting//, because it is often associated with a negative connotation and involves a lot of work that students do not feel comfortable completing. Sommers research probably lead her and her co-author to further explain the importance of revising as it is introduced to their audience in the following manor, "To revise is to "re-see," and the comments you recieve from your instructors, peers and writing center tutors will help you re-see your draft from your readers point of view (23).

Hacker and Sommers go above and beyond as they describe the revision process in a friendlier light to their student readers. They also help students understand those often blunt comments that educators may leave on their rough drafts. For example, the text offers a variety of comments such as “Unclear Thesis,” it then provides similar comments educators might use and then explains how to understand the comment and “strategies for revising” (23-27).

Although Hacker and Sommers provide typical and basic information that almost every handbook offers such as “How To’s” for : Planning, Drafting, Revising, Writing paragraphs, Using Transition Sentences, Designing Documents and Writing with Technology—they also go above and beyond to inform student writers how to feel comfortable while completing the typical writing steps while offering a variety of approaches and tips.

** Academic Writing ** I previously mentioned the importance of sharing and exploring the different discourse communities with our students. This text offers an entire section on transforming a typical writing piece into a piece fit for the **Academic Discourse Community.** Throughout this section of the text Hacker and Sommers offer various reasons and ways to write more appropriately for the Academic Discourse Community as the transition from one discourse community to another is often very difficult and time consuming. If this text were used in a high school setting students planning on entering the collegiate academic discourse community will be better prepared as it provides them with key information and helpful tips in the following areas: · Active Reading · Summarizing · Analyzing to demonstrate critical thinking · Constructing Arguments · Establishing Credibility · Evaluating Arguments · Writing in the disciplines In college composition courses across the country professors are pointing the finger at high school teachers for ill-prepared students. With this textbook high school teachers can create and implement exercises that directly correlate to the topics discussed in this section in order to better prepare their students for academic writing in the collegiate level. While having high school students read this material may be helpful, it is essential that teachers implement the rules and suggestions in the students everyday lessons.

** Sentence Style ** ** ﻿ ** Although this text offers a variety of approaches to writing it also focuses on the common goals of high school writing courses which include forming the perfect sentence while offering variety throughout the students writing piece.This section is a more formal section as it addresses the syntax of a paper in comparison to the previous sections that offered a less stressful environment for student writers. While applying this section to the high school classroom, educators might have a difficult time keeping their students interest and attention as this section explains: parallelism, needed words, problems with modifiers, shifts, mixed constructions, sentence emphasis and sentence variety. This portion of the text is comparable to other handbooks and does not stand out in an amazing way as the other portions did.

**Word Choice** In this section hacker and Sommers offer clarity for those students struggling to differentiate between words that sound the same but have a different meaning (i.e.: effect vs. affect). This portion of the text is very helpful as it not only gives students the correct terms but explains when and why it is appropriate to use the term. This section is not found in many other handbooks. Not only does this section off a “Glossary of Usage” but it also provides its’ readers with explanations how to eliminate words in a lengthy sentence without losing meaning while simplifying the structure. This portion also describes how to “stay away from jargon,” a task other handbooks do not readily address.

** Overall Help Information //A Writer's Reference// Offered ** Throughout the text Hacker and Sommers address the idea of community which was represented in a blurb they entitled, “Academic English” in which they stated, “What counts as good writing caries from culture to culture and even among groups within cultures. In some situations you will need to become familiar with the writing styles—such as direct or indirect, personal or impersonal, plain or embellished—that are valued by the culture or discipline for which you are writing” (4). The idea of community is represented as early as the “planning stage” and is continued to be represented throughout the text offering various pieces of information that readers and writers should keep in mind when dealing with those from different discourse communities. The idea of community is often forgotten among academic writing as mentioned by theorists such as David Bartholomae, Joseph Harris, and Patricia Bizzell. However, these theorists emphasize the importance of exploring the discourse community of others as it affects a writer’s message and way of conveying that message to others.

In her article, “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers” Sommers expresses a need for student writers to learn new techniques for revising, one that suggests a less formal approach (plan, write, revise) instead she states that “isolating revision and then disregarding it plays havoc with the experiences composition teachers have of the actual writing and rewriting of experienced writers”. However, in “A Writer’s Reference” Hacker and Sommers warn their reader that although they “will generally move from planning to drafting to revising [they must] be prepared to return to earlier stages as [the writer] ideas develop” (3). This furthers Sommers belief that the revising of ones writing is a never ending process that must be dealt with time and time again rather than an isolated process that is dealt with and then further disregarded.

Another useful tool this text offered that many handbooks do not was the Research Calendar found on page 331. The research calendar was a model time line that helps students plan their project. Most of the time when assigned a research paper, students will procrastinate as they put off the actual research until a few days prior to the due date. However, this portion of the text gave an example of a calendar allotting the correct and necessary amount of time for assessing the project, posing questions, meeting with those who can help, reading/taking notes, working on a draft, additional research, peer review, proofreading, preparing a works cited, and turning in the final draft. The Research section also proved to be quite helpful as it explains how to pose the correct and appropriate questions, map out a research strategy, locate information, evaluate sources and avoid plagiarism.

** Conclusion ** ** ﻿ ** What makes this text so reliable and useful is that every idea and concept that Hacker and Sommers suggest is not only supported but also explained so that students can easily comprehend the material. This handbook goes to great depths exploring ideas and opinions for every type of writer whether they are a formalist or expressivist.

This text offers educators a variety of ways to not only teach their students to write properly and gain confidence as writers but to build a relationship with them as well as it recognizes and suggests the ideas of community, relationships, and support.

Much like her arguments made in her essay, in her handbook Sommers pays more attention to the planning, composing and revising stages of her writing than the sentence structure and word choice. However, Hacker and Sommers offer great tips to avoid the usual writing mistakes in sections such as "Grammatical Sentences". Another great aspect this text has--it offers formatting guides with equally helpful "how to" step's for all three popular writing formats including the MLA, APA and the CMS.

//A Writer's Reference// seems to have everything a teacher would need to properly teach students how to become stronger and more confident writers. While this text seems to be better fit for an upper level writing class room such as an AP writing class, as it describes what college writing requires. However, it may also be a good idea to start implementing these ideas into classroom discussions as early as the latter part of the 10th grade so that students can become familiar with the concepts presented here.

A Nancy Sommers Video further explaining her point of view for the importance of the writing process.

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