Flower,
L., & Hayes, J. R. (1981). A cognitive process theory of writing. College Composition and Communication, 32(4).
365-387.
I will work on the citation for this printing in Cross-Talk in Comp Theory. What version
are the pdfs from?
Author:
Linda S. Flower: lf54@andrew.cmu.edu
BA – English and French, Simpson College ‘65; PhD – English,
Rutgers ’72. Professor of Rhetoric, Dept of English at Cernegie Mellon
University. Early work in cognitive processes in writing, looking to
problem-solve in instruction. More recent focus on constructing negotiated
meaning within competing identities and cultures. Looking at new literacy and
inner city, multi-cultural communities, she is researching “intercultural
rhetoric and education for community consequences.” http://english.cmu.edu/people/faculty/homepages/flower/default.html
John
R. Hayes: jh50@andrew.cmu.edu Also at
CMU, in the Psychology Department, funds the John R. Hayes Award for excellence
in writing research ($1000) published in Journal
of Writing Research. Pioneer in cognitive psychology within writing
research – HEAVILY cited. Necessary to read for background on Authors’ Study.
Looks at expert vs. novice; processes of planning, composing (even down to
sentence level), and revision; the role of knowledge base for creative masters.
Date:
Early 1980s – process model (exposure
to broad content – encouraging process that lead to competency growth) is different than heritage model (transmitting culture and values with a cannon of
study) and competencies model
(producing mastery in hierarch of skills in sequence). Donald Graves, Lucy M.
Calkins, and Nancy Atwell are big names in Process.
Research Questions: What
guides the decisions writers make as they write? Creation of Cognitive Process
Theory:
Goals
or even establishing entirely new ones based on what has been learned in the
act of writing.
Context (need for
study): Talk of the composition process of
choice making needs to be backed up with answers. Kinneavy says, “Informing
persuading, expressing, or manipulating language for its own sake” while
Moffett and Gibson say, “Sense of the relation of speakers, subject, and
audience” (Odell, Cooper, and Courts) (p. 365). Bitzer = response to a
rhetorical situation.; Vatz = all response and situation “are determained by
the imagination and art of the speaker” (p. 366). James Britton = process led
by syntactic and lexical choices.
Methods:
First: defining sub-process categories, show how these elements interact, want
model to speak to what has remained unseen. Protocol analysis – not
introspective, used in other cognitive process studies. Participants were to
write an article on their job for Seventeen
magazine, prepping as normal, but “composing out loud near an unobtrusive
tape recorder” (p. 370). Transcript, together with manuscript, details writer’s
process.
Findings:
370 – “The act of writing involves three major elements which are reflected in
the three units of the model: the task
environment, the writer’s long-term memory, and the writing process.”
Writing is a process of setting goals, testing/reevaluating them, and consolidating/regenerating
into new ones, often more complex. The writer is the creator, the decision
maker, the one working – rather than being manipulated by forces.
Discussion (my
connection): Moffett and Gibson seem to be getting at
my general leaning for what constitutes voice.
I’m pretty sure I’ve heard Lloyd Bitzer’s “rhetorictcal situation, which he
succinctly defines as containing an exigency (which demands a response), an
audience, and a set of constraints” (pp.
365-266) in my program at Utah State. As far as using a protocol analysis since
it has been used in other cognitive studies I feel that you are going to find
what you want when you look through a lens that leads you there. Perhaps it is
the bent of the psychologist who can speak the language of composition. The
writer is no longer on a conveyor belt, being pushed along by external forces
although a timed writing sample to be created in front of a computer you may or
may not know how to use can seem forceful. Students often see the process of
writing as a three-step process, which gives the impression of final drafts
really being final. It is tough now with instant publication on the Internet,
but the process for writers to get a published piece out takes much more time
than many give to school assignments. I am intrigued by the protocol analysis,
hearing someone talk out their decisions while also getting their manuscript. I
do not think, though, that I could be the subject and not go into introspection
during the session.
Perl,
S. (1990). Understanding composing. In T. Newkirk (Ed.), To compose (41-51). Portsmouth, NH: Heineman.
Author:
Sondra Perl – English Department at Lehman College. She lists academic
interests in writing, teaching, creative
nonfiction, ethnography, women's studies, holocaust studies, cross-cultural
dialogue, urban education, collaborative projects, writing across the curriculum
(ought to be similar or informative for Nancy Sommers’ book about the Harvard
students). http://www.lehman.edu/academics/arts-humanities/english/faculty-perl.php
She looks at attitudes, processes, and teaching of writing.
Date:
1990s – movement toward greater accountability in field of education. NCTE and
IRA joined in developing a common set of national standards for ELA (viewing,
visually representing, reading, writing, listening, and speaking) – specific
outcomes students should be able to do. Demographics are changing and linguistic
and cultural diversities are growing in school populations.
Research Questions:
To what do writers move back? What exactly is being repeated? What recurs?
Research
in class brought teachers to questions of: What basic patterns seem to occur
during composing? What does this type of research have to tell us about he
nature of the composing process?
Context (need for
study): Emig (1971), Flowers and Hayes (1980),
and Sommers (1979) are among those questioning the traditional and linear model
of writing (plan-write-revise).
Methods:
Group of 20 teachers in research and basic writing at NYU in 1979, all tape
recording their thoughts while composing aloud in “My Most Anxious Moment as a
Writer”. Understanding of controlling.altering
process with assigned topic and asking to compose aloud. Protocol
analysis? On page 45, it seems the observations come from a career of
observations, not just the moment at NYU.
Findings:
“Recognition of recursiveness in writing” (p. 44). Writing is recursive, but
the parts that recur vary from writer to writer. 1) Writers reread chunks 2)
Returning to key word or notion of the topic 3) Movement to feelings and
perceptions that the already present text evokes in the writer. “Those who
realize that writing can be a recursive process have an easier time with
waiting, looking, and discovering. Those who subscribe to the linear model find
themselves easily frustrated when what they write does not immediately
correspond to what they planned or when what they produce leaves them with little
sense of accomplishment” (pp. 49-50). Projective structuring puts the writer
into the place of the reader, imagining what other readers could need from the
piece – to do so requires one to have experience as a reader. Other focus on
process (turned into finding and doing what the teacher wants) and ignore their
felt sense and do not connect to the writing.
Discussion (my
connection): I wonder, since this study is done
with teachers and the Flowers and Hayes group used professionals to describe
their job, what the writing process looks like for students of all ages, but I
think quickly to my students at Sweet Home High School – not the ones who would
write along the lines of what I asked, but the ones who were dragging their
feet, refusing, or providing me with minimal product. The environment and
instruction I presented were not ideal nor would I want to reenact what I have
done, but I assume that this is a very real place for teachers to confront the
person who does not live (in school) “like a writer”. Are there similar studies with fly-under-the-radar-type students? Have
these students made it through school without having experienced the momentum-high
of creating through writing? I
involve myself with the felt sense often. I move my hands, say some words over
and over, [doing it right now], in order to grasp a sense of my own
understanding before, not through, my fingers on the keys. Even projective
structuring that calls me into the reader role requires me to return to my felt
sense of being a reader.
Sommers, N. (1980). Revision strategies of
student writers and experienced adult writers. College Composition and Communication, 31(4), 378-388.
I will work on the citation for this printing in Cross-Talk in Comp Theory. What version
are the pdfs from?
Author:
Nancy Sommers: nancy_sommers@gse.harvard.edu;
Adjunct Lecturer on Education at Harvard. Ed.D from Boston University. Interested in writing development and
literacy skills of college and high school students – tracking 400 students
from Harvard class of ’01 to understand role of writing in undergraduate
education. Also look for “Responding to
Student Writing” (I’ve read it…I think with Brock Dethier). http://www.gse.harvard.edu/directory/faculty/faculty-detail/?fc=82044&flt=s&sub=all
Date:
Early 1980s – process model (exposure
to broad content – encouraging process that lead to competency growth) is different than heritage model (transmitting culture and values with a cannon of
study) and competencies model
(producing mastery in hierarch of skills in sequence). Donald Graves, Lucy M.
Calkins, and Nancy Atwell are big names in Process.
Research Questions:
What roles does revision play in the writing processes of college student
writers and experienced (professional) writers?
Context (need for
study): Absent research on revision within the
writing process since current (1980) models are mostly linear and move away
from revision (inner speech – meanings of words – in words…revision is not
there).
Methods:
Case study – 20 freshmen at Boston University and the University of Oklahoma
with SAT verbals between 450-600 while in their first semester of college
composition. 20 experienced, adult writers from Boston and OKC (journalists,
editors, academics). Series of studies over 3 years. Each writer wrote an
expressive, explanatory, and persuasive essay. All three essays were rewritten
twice resulting in nine drafts or final drafts. Interviews and suggestions for
other authors three times after each final revision. Essays were analyzed and
changes were categorized. Interview transcripts were used to create a scale of
concerns that each writer had.
Findings:
Revision is “a sequence of changes in a composition—changes which are initiated
by cures and occur continually throughout the writing of a work.” Four revision
operations: deletion, substitution, addition, and reordering. Four levels of
change: word, phrase, sentence, theme (the extended statement of one idea).
Students hardly used the terms “revision” or “rewriting,” instead using
alternate definitions and see this step as changing words – hardly meaning – in
order to clean up speech. Their text was solid and existed in its entirety but
needed to be communicated better. They see no need to revise if one can read
and not get tripped up. Changes in ideas came in modifying an introductory
paragraph, as if the hook was all that was needed. They lack the procedures or
experience to reason through questions of purposes and readers. Experienced
writers are rewriting to find “the form or shape of their argument” in
patterns, frameworks, or designs. The initial writing is done to find what to
say. Their second drafts are looking toward structure. Revisions are necessary
when they recognize a disconnect between intention and execution. Experienced
writers change mostly on the sentence level, but they change on all levels –
unlike the students.
Discussion (my
connection): Sommers notes that linear models are
based off of classical rhetoric for oratory – revision isn’t existent in speech.
I need to be thinking about structure origins. I am reminded of the letter that
Joey writes in support of Monica and Chandler as adoptive parents in an episode
of Friends when he used a thesaurus
on every word he could, signing the letter “Baby kangaroo Tribiani”. In order
to recognize your own incongruities, you have to be a critical reader, as Perl
states the necessity to be an experienced reader. It takes more time than students
generally give, because writing is only a way to get through to the grade for
many – sweeping generalization. Similar to the felt sense, “at the heart of
revision is the process by which writers recognize and resolve the dissonance
they sense in their writing” (p 51). At issue is maturation. The child smashes
more trash into the trash can. The father takes the trash out. Students respond
to what they are taught - that writing is linear and are simply doing what
comes next in order to clean up appearances. The experienced writers have taken
the risks to discover through reading and writing and to look for problems in
their own writing. Students have a sense of writing to placate, not to disturb.
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