Sondra Pearls Felt Sense
Sometimes wondering and thinking about where and how to start an essay can be extremely frustrating. There are ways and steps that can make ones life easier. One way and format we can use are, Sondra Pearls “Felt Sense: Writing with the body.” It discusses how felt sense connects the mind with the body, knowledge with feeling and discovering with knowing. Sondra Pearl is an English professor at Lehman College. She has written six books. Her six books are based on writing. She has been leading writing workshops on college campuses for over 20 years.
The term “felt sense”, is a term that Sondra Pearl borrows from the psychologist Eugene Gendlin. The terms itself is meant to describe a feeling that a writer has when an idea or image is there but they aren’t able to find what to put onto the paper itself. It clearly makes sense on why she would choose this term to describe a format that would help these kind of people that had problems on choosing what to write on their paper. According to Eric Kaufamn the felt sense is a “technique of acknowledging the importance of the body and the self of the writer.” The felt sense theory is extremely useful to writers because it can help improve the writers writing and make them more comfortable while writing the paper. Kaufamn says, “We respond to certain topics in certain ways, and learning to accept and embrace this unique felt sense is crucial to the composing process.” Kaufamn is saying that us writers shouldn’t ignore the felt sense and that all writers should learn to accept this concept in order for writers to become better at what they do.
Felt sense is a writers guide into their body and mind. The felt sense guides through the steps and process they have to take while writing. According to Sondra Pearl the felt sense is, “internal criterion writers seem to use to guide them when they are planning, drafting, and revising”(Pearl 31). When a writer understand’s there felt sense they will be able to feel it in their mind and body, and of course have a reaction. When the writer is at this stage of actually feeling the felt sense, it will allow them to work better and move on forward with their writing. The writer than will get through the concept and ideas they have in front of them, meaning they will easily get to what they need to write without overwhelming themselves. The felt sense is important to writing because as a writer one shouldn’t put there feelings aside. Those feelings one has should be useful to one’s paper. When thinking about the topic, the mind and body are working together, to think everything out. The mind and body become separate when the paper is written. Felt sense can help the writer understand more about what they are writing.
Pearl Sondra has came up with a process that In order for writers to learn how and when to call on the felt sense. “The crucial operation in the Pearl process is when you pause and attend to the felt sense”(39). In this process you need to pause and ask yourself specific questions to help get out what you really want to say. One of the questions that are on the Pearl process is what’s my feeling for what I’m getting at? Then one must ask themselves a follow up question, have I’ve said it to make sure that you’ve said what you wanted to say.
Following the process before, the other important part of the Perl process is when you answer no to the questions you asked yourself. This actually tends to help the writer the writer move close to what they actually want to write. When saying no to ones questions, “you tend to experience a click or shift that moves you closer to knowing...In short, pausing, checking, and saying “No” usually lead you to better words”(Perl 39). When doing this part of the Perl process, it helps the writer process in their writing, making it easier to eliminate the words that aren’t needed.
In trying to improve one’s writing one must clearly think first what they are being asked during the process. Felt sense can help in time while one is confused on what they actually want to write. The felt sense deals with your mind and body. Felt sense can help a writer work on what they actually want to say and helps the writer be able to put their feelings. It is able to take out what the writer actually wants to say.
Works Cited
Kaufman, Eric. “On Felt Sense: Sondra Perl’s Composing Guidelines.” Web. 8 Dec. 2008. http://languageandthinking.bard.edu/2010/12/on-felt-sense-sondra-perl%E2%80%99s-composing-guidelines/
Perl, Sondra. “Understanding Composing.” College Composition and Communication, Vol. 31, No. 4. (Dec., 1980), pp. 363-369.
Perl, Sondra. “Composing Guidelines.” Web.1987.
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ReplyDeleteHi Patty,
ReplyDeleteYou have some good quotes here. What I'd like to see you work on are sentence structure and development. Here's what I mean:
sentence structure: This means that you have to make sure each word and phrase in a sentence has a reference to something very clear. For example, when you say "The felt sense guides through the steps and process they have to take while writing," I feel like that doesn't mean anything, really. How does a felt sense guide through steps? That doesn't sound quite right. A writer can move through the steps Perl lays out, and each of the steps helps the writer attend to his/her felt sense. You have alot of sentences like this. It could be a writing problem, but what it suggests to me is that you aren't quite sure what the terms of the discussion really mean. Another reason I think this is because you don't really define felt sense very clearly, but often repeat things like "felt sense is following feelings" and such. Or when you use a great quote, your follow up commentary just repeats the quote almost exactly. Another reason I think this is because you repeatedly spell Perl's name incorrectly, which suggests you didn't really do research on your own (how could you find anything with the name spelled wrong?) but maybe relied on the work already done by your fellow students on their blogs?
Which brings me to the second thing you need to work on: how to make follow-commentary. Here is a section from your paper:
Kaufamn says, “We respond to certain topics in certain ways, and learning to accept and embrace this unique felt sense is crucial to the composing process.” Kaufamn is saying that us writers shouldn’t ignore the felt sense and that all writers should learn to accept this concept in order for writers to become better at what they do.
Do you see how what you wrote after the quote is almost exactly like what Kaufman already says? Your job as a writer is NOT to follow up by repeating what she says. Most of the time, our job as a writer is to develop upon what the quote presents-to USE it to say something of our own. I'd like to provide you a model of what I mean. If it were me writing, I'd say this after the Kaufman quote: "What Kaufman says reminds me of an experience I've often had as a student. I try to write a paper saying what I think my teacher wants me to say, even though I am responding negatively to the topic we've been assigned. As I write, I find I am unable to pull it off. My attempt to "give my teacher what he wants" is failing me because what he wants isn't what I want, it's not what I really think or feel about the topic. What Kaufman suggests is that if I were to take my response--my felt sense--seriously, I could take the fact that I am responding negatively and ask myself 'why do I feel this way? What is it I really want to say?' And then I could construct a paper around that genuine response I'm having."
Do you see what I mean? I'd like to see you work on having more genuine responses to the topics you chose, and not just repeating what's already been said. It feels like you are just filling out a form, not really caring much or feeling much for what you are writing. Maybe you chose the wrong topic? Maybe you didn't really read Perl's work and allow yourself to have a real response or experience of it? Try to find a way to get YOURSELF into this work! Read around and have some real feelings. Whatever they are, they are ok. Even hating the ideas is fine. Just say what you think!