Vianca Acosta
ENG 220
Sondra Perl
Writing is meant to be read with pleasure. It is important to feel and understand what we are writing about. During the writing process the writer should always feel the sense of the paper, the words in order to
proceed, and have the reader understand the writing.
Guidelines help us write but one of the most important and enduring idea that had contributed to the field of theorizing the writing process is “felt sense”. Felt sense is the most important idea of Sondra Perl. It is the feeling of what you want to say, and understanding what your writing is about. Sondra Perl is professor of English and Urban Education at Lehman College and The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Perl is an English professor whose specialty is the teaching writing.
During the writing process it is important that we take a look to the topic or the issue we are writing about because we need to pay attention to the feelings that we are getting from the writing. During the process of a writing assignment we ask ourselves, “what is missing?”, “what's this all about?”, what point do I want to make?”, or “does what I’m saying make sense?”. This is part of felt sense. Felt sense is the feeling that we get during a writing process or the feeling we get when our writing piece is not clear enough for us as a writer. Felt sense is with us all the time. It helps us with ideas to make our writing piece better and understandable, It let us know what we need to improve and make it clear. Felt sense help us focus on our writing by checking and knowing the feeling toward what we are writing about. It is something that we feel within the body that helps us write a well written paper.
When we get stuck on a paper felt sense help us to know where our writing is getting at and if is going out of place. “Continue writing, even when you don’t know where you're going” (p.36), this is an example of no matter how confused or lost we might be while writing we can take a chance and stop to settle down the information we have by understanding and have it clear in order to continue, and making sure we are mentioning the point we want to make. Felt sense is also when you write anything even if you don’t know why are you writing or what are you writing about. It is the pause we take to look at what we have so far, is when we follow our feelings and images and continue our writing process ideas. Also it is what tells us if our writing is right or wrong. When we ask ourselves questions during a writing assignment we follow our guts. And felt sense help us make it better in the way of asking questions such as “what point do I want to make?” and this question can help us get better as a writer, thinker, and to have a good writing piece. With the idea of felt sense Sondra Perl wants to give us the opportunity to follow what we feel inside while we write, it is basically like following our guts. Some people feel different while writing. Some might stop and ask themselves, “where is this leading?”, this is an example of how felt sense allow you to write down whatever comes to mind. Even though, sometimes we might feel that our writing is going into a different direction and is not making any sense we always think and continue writing to make it better.
This idea of Sondra Perl; felt sense lead us to think before we write and while we write. “Learn to listen to what your body knows, to what is on the edge, but not yet in words, to cultivate [felt sense] so that your writing comes alive. Felt sense is key to understand how new ideas come to us”. As a writer we need to learn how to listen and understand what our body is telling us. For example, thinking before you speak. Before we write we need to understand what the body is telling us to feel and to express. We need to feel, listen, and understand in order to start writing. Before taking pen and paper we need to feel what we are going to transmit; to give out there to the reader. Doing all these strategies of feeling, understanding and thinking before writing, our writing comes alive. Our thought gives our witting the spirit of giving the information we want to give out. New ideas come to us from the inside of us. We have to feel in order to write. We have to think in order to write. Felt sense is the understanding of following our guts and thinking about what we are write about before we start.
Felt sense is an useful writing idea because it helps writers to improve their writing. Felt sense is important because we all can improve and get better as a writer. It pushes us with our thoughts and understanding to get better at something we are having problem with. To me felt sense means more than an idea to think before writing, It is the process that lead us to a better communication with ourselves and it give us the opportunity to listen to our body and know exactly what we want to write before writing it. Felt sense is Sondra Perl's most important idea because in order to become a better writer we need to follow our guts and listen to our body before we start writing.
Work Cited
Perl, Sondra. Understanding Composing. P. 29-35.
Perl, Sondra. Composing Guidelines. P. 36-40
http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/nwp_au/970.
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