“Writing Steps: A Recursive and Individual Experience” – Bonnie Warne, 2008

Warne does a great job in this article explaining the recursive process that writing takes. She uses Sommers idea that writing is a fluid cycle rather than a series of steps to compare the writing process to a Slinky, which I think is a visual metaphor. “The spiral model of the writing process posits that it is possible to brainstorm, draft, and revise all at the same time.” (pg. 25) Well said! We do our students a disservice if we teach writing as a process where you have to complete one step before you move onto the next. This, in fact, is not how real writers write, or at least not all the time.
I found that a passage that really spoke to me as a writer was: “The students, as Sondra Perl reported in her study of college writers, use a red editing pencil, at least in their minds, as they stab at their writing, unceasingly looking for the convention errors before they even know what they want to say (38).” (pg. 26) I am the student that Perl and Warne speak of here. One flaw I have is that I am so concerned about things being written correctly, that I don’t “let it rip,” as Bill Woolum taught us to do. So many things to work on, so little time!