Perl, Sondra. “The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers.” Cross-Talk in Comp Theory, edited by Victor Villanueva and Kristin L. Arola, National Council of Teachers of English, 2011, pp. 17-39.

In the article “The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers,” Sondra Perl establishes that “teachers may first need to identify which characteristic components of each student’s process facilitate writing and which inhibit before further teaching takes place” (38). Perl substantiates her claim through a study of five unskilled college writers and their composing processes. Her purpose is to closely study how unskilled writers compose in order to show that “beginning” writers do have a process that can be utilized and polished. She suggests that the results of her study will be useful to teachers. As a student and possible future teacher, I found her evidence excessive but the discussion of her findings was intriguing and informative.