Chapter 6 Required Materials and Tasks
Chapter 6 Required Readings: Cognitivism
- “Writing as a Mode of Learning” by Janet Emig: College Composition and Communication, Vol. 28, No. 2. (May, 1977), pp. 122-128.
- “The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers” by Sondra Perl: Research in the Teaching of English, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Dec., 1979), pp. 317-336
- “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers” by Nancy Sommers: College Composition and Communication, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Dec., 1980), pp. 378-388
- “A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing” by Linda Flower and John R. Hayes: College Composition and Communication 32.4 (Dec., 1981) pp. 365-387.
Chapter 6 Class Activities
Freewriting: Your Writing Process
- You’ve been working on Your Teaching Vision for this course as well as writing for other courses. Pick one paper, such as the vision statement, and record all the parts of the writing process you can recall going through. Try to describe the writing from beginning to end. It’s possible that the paper you are reflecting about writing isn’t done yet, which is fine. If so, talk about future steps that you still expect to take as you work to finish the process of writing that paper.
Discussion: Processes for Writing
- Compare the different processes for writing that people in your group said they use
- Identify elements of the writing process that were common for multiple people
- Are there any aspects of people’s writing process that seemed very unique?
Writing Process Videos
- Video: Writers’ Confessions – The Nuts and Bolts of Writing
- Video: A Simple Version of the Writing Process by Alexis Teasdell
- Video: A Complex Version of the Writing Process Jonathan Uses to Write a Blog
Think Aloud Writing Protocol Procedure
- Now we will attempt to refine our writing process explanations using research
- Please do not click on the task below until you are told to do so
- Task: Think Aloud Protocol Writing Prompt
Protocol Analysis Discussion
- Describe the participant’s writing process.
- What general observations can you make about how the participant wrote?
- What challenges did the writer face?
- How did the participant move their writing process forward?
- How did participant monitor their writing process?
- What was most surprising to you about this mini research study?
- How would you revise your study for the future?
Cognitive Theory
- Janet Emig
- Harvard doctoral student
- Writes the first dissertation on composition
- Emig, Janet. (1971). The Composing Processes of Twelfth Graders. NCTE.
- Voss, R. (1983). Janet Emig’s The Composing Processes of Twelfth Graders: A Reassessment. College Composition and Communication, 34(3), 278-283. doi:10.2307/358258
- “Writing as a Mode of Learning” by Janet Emig: College Composition and Communication, Vol. 28, No. 2. (May, 1977), pp. 122-128.
- Linda Flower and John Hayes
- Flower–Composition scholar at Carnegie Mellon University
- Hayes–Cognitive psychologist
- The Flower and Hayes Model of Composing
- Overview: Flower and Hayes’ Cognitive Model of the Composing Process
- “A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing” by Linda Flower and John R. Hayes
- College Composition and Communication 32.4 (Dec., 1981) pp. 365-387.
- p. 365: “How do writers actually go about choosing diction, syntactic and organizational patterns, and content? Kinneavy claims that one’s purpose in forming, persuading, expressing, or manipulating language for its own
sake-guides these choices. Moffett and Gibson contend that these choices are determined by one’s sense of the relation of speaker, subject, and audience. Is either of these two claims borne out by the actual practice of writers engaged in drafting or revising? Does either premise account adequately for the choices writers make?” (p. 365). - “1. The process of writing is best understood as a set of distinctive thinking processes which writers orchestrate or organize during the act of composing.
2. These processes have a hierarchical, highly embedded organization in which any given process can be embedded within any other.
3. The act of composing itself is a goal-directed thinking process, guided by the writer’s own growing network of goals.
4. Writers create their own goals in two key ways: by generating both high-level goals and supporting sub-goals which embody the writer’s developing sense of purpose, and then, at times, by changing major goals or even establishing entirely new ones based on what has been learned in the act of writing” (p. 366).
- Sondra Perl
- “The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers” by Sondra Perl
- Research in the Teaching of English, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Dec., 1979), pp. 317-336
- “The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers” by Sondra Perl
- Nancy Sommers
- “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers” by Nancy Sommers
- College Composition and Communication, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Dec., 1980), pp. 378-388
- “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers” by Nancy Sommers
- Mike Rose
- James Kinneavy: A Theory of Discourse (1980)
- James Moffett: Teaching the Universe of Discourse (1983)
Chapter 6 Optional Materials
Contemporary Cognitivism
- Stormer, Kimberly J. (2017) “Why Can’t Tyrone Write: Reconceptualizing Flower and Hayes for African-American Adolescent Male Writers,” Middle Grades Review: Vol. 3: Iss. 3, Article 5.
- An contemporary application of Flower and Hayes’ work
From Cognitivism to Social Constructionism
- “Cognition, Convention, and Certainty: What We Need to Know about Writing” by Patricia Bizzell
- Pre/Text: A Journal of Rhetorical Theory 3:3 (Fall 1982): 213-43.