Keywords: Cognitive Development

The Psychology of Writing: The Affective Experience by Alice Brand

"Basic Writing and the Process Paradigm" by James L. Collins

"A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing" by Linda Flower and John Hayes

"Patterns and Possibilities for Basic Writers" by Janet R. Gilbert

"Freedom to Write—Through Imitation" By Donna Gorrell

"Socio-Cognitive Development and Argumentative Writing: Issues and Implications From One Research Project" by Janice N. Hays

"Cognitive Development and the Basic Writer" by Andrea Lunsford

Writing and the Writer by Frank Smith

Brand, Alice. The Psychology of Writing: The Affective Experience. New York: Greenwood Press, 1989.

Alice Brand's book provides a look at a side of composition that she feels has been largely ignored due to an emphasis on cognitive research and its primary association with rational thought, as well as to negative and distorted views of "emotion." Brand believes that research into writing needs instead to view the cognitive and the affective as interrelated, but in this work, her focus is mainly on the affective. However, in the preface to the book, Peter Elbow reminds us that "even though we now stand in need of a kind of compensatory 'affirmative action' focus on feelings in writing, we must not neglect either thinking or feeling: that feelings usually create and partly consist of cognitive acts; and that cognition usually comes intertwined with feelings" (xvii).

Brand begins by providing overviews of the following: the emotions of established writers as those emotions were discussed in the author's memoirs and autobiographies; the cognitive model of writing; and various theories of emotion held by psychologists in the Western world, both historically and currently. Next, she describes her own research project. She conducted research of various groups of writers (English students, psychology students, professional writers, English teachers, student poets), and she asked those writers to self-report the emotions they felt before, during, and after engaging in writing. The results of her research demonstrate, among other things, that emotion is present in writing; several groups of writers--not just basic writers--experience apprehension before, during, and after writing; and negative emotions are not always debilitating.

Collins, James L. "Basic Writing and the Process Paradigm." Journal of Basic Writing 14.2 (1995): 3-18.

Collins' critique of process approaches in the teaching of writing focuses on the way such approaches employ an implicit mode of instruction that privileges mainstream students. Implicit instruction is teaching that uses nondirective suggestions and tacit implications in place of explicit direction or modeling. Students who are familiar with Standard English are therefore more likely to benefit from implicit instruction; students who are unfamiliar with Standard English may be frustrated by the lack of instruction in the mainstream code they are expected to master as members of the academic community. Collins identifies two myths that are central to the process approaches currently in vogue: 1) the belief that writing development is natural, and 2) the belief that teaching is primarily the facilitation of development. While holding these beliefs may do no harm when utilized with mainstream students, the withholding of modeling and direction from students unfamiliar with academic culture may prohibit writing development. Without guides to follow, these students have no opportunity to incorporate the language strategies with which mainstream students are already familiar. Collins notes that the main difficulty with implicit instruction is the assumption of natural development of language abilities. He notes that basic writers are often members of discourse communities other than the mainstream, Standard English-speaking community; therefore, implicit models of literacy instruction are inappropriate in the basic writing classroom.

Recognizing that much implicit instruction is a reaction to the highly directive, skills-based writing instruction that preceded it, Collins writes, "I think the teaching of basic writing always involves the balancing of direct modeling and instruction with culturally determined, habitual and therefore seemingly 'natural' discourse patterns" (14). He suggests that basic writing teachers become aware of and appreciative of differences among discourses. By doing so, they can begin to welcome their basic writing students into a new discourse community with explicit instruction that allows them to become fully functioning members.

Flower, Linda, and John Hayes. "A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing." College Composition and Communication 32 (1981):365-87.

Flower and Hayes reject theories of stages of the writing process; to them seeing writing as individual stages, exercises kept succinctly separate from each other, autonomous activities that lead to perfect writing--prewriting, then writing, then rewriting, then I'm done--oversimplifies what writing really is and reduces the mental activities that comprise writing. Stage models are inadequate in representing the 'moment by moment' process of writing. They find four principles in the cognitive process model which describe the actual process of composing.

1. "Writing is best understood as a set of distinctive thinking processes which writers orchestrate or organize during the act of composing." That is, the mental processes are devised while the writing is actually being done.

2. "The processes of writing are hierarchically organized, with component processes embedded within other components." The mental activities occur in no particular order, with the mind being unpredictably associational rather than linear.

3. "Writing is a goal-directed process. In the act of composing, writers create a hierarchical network of goals and these in turn guide the writing process." Writers create goals, but do not always state those goals.

4. "Writers create their own goals in two key ways: by generating goals and support goals which embody a purpose; and, at times, by changing or regenerating their own top-level goals in light of what they have learned by writing." Writers go back and revise those goals as necessary.

Flower and Hayes' Cognitive Process Model [not pictured] has four items:

The Task Environment, which encompasses the writer, the problem, the text. Long-Term Memory, the storehouse of knowledge about the subject, the problem, and the writing process. Writing Processes, where the goal setting, planning, and reviewing take place. Monitor, the writing strategist which determines when the writer moves from one task to the next.

Gilbert, Janet R. "Patterns and Possibilities for Basic Writers." Journal of Basic Writing 6.2 (Fall 1987): 37-52.

Gilbert takes the view that Basic Writers must learn advanced lexical and syntactic patterns of writing before they can either 1) explore the content of their subject thoroughly, or 2) show a clear sense of purpose in their writing. Basic writers use primarily oral speech patterns.

Gorrell, Donna. "Freedom to Write—Through Imitation." Journal of Basic Writing 6.2 (Fall 1987): 53-59.

In the eternal "conflict" between form and meaning, Gorell takes the position that students cannot write really creatively until they internalize the forms that writing takes. She uses Piaget and classical rhetoric to argue for the use of imitation as a natural learning technique that allows students to learn the forms of writing in which they will then be able to more effectively express themselves.

Hays, Janice N. "Socio-Cognitive Development and Argumentative Writing: Issues and Implications From One Research Project." Journal of Basic Writing 7.2 (Fall 1988): 42-67.

This study of 136 students grows out of a discussion of whether students need to learn the rules of academic discourse in order to be successful, or, as this author argues, that problems in writing stem from more than that. Hays uses a Perry Scheme rubric (see appendix A) to analyze two essays per student, and looks for stages of cognitive development. She recommends tailoring essay assignments to the students' particular abilities. The stages are: (stage 1 is not named) 2) Multiplicity Prelegitimate, where students perceive alternative points of view, but reject them; 3) Multiplicity subordinate, where students acknowledge the existence of alternative views, but hold out in favor of attaining an absolute knowledge; 4) Mutiplicity prelegitimate, where students recognize that they will never achieve certainty, and can see evidence as leading to hypothesis rather than truth; 5) Relativism, where students go beyond dualistic to multiplistic reasoning, no longer seeing issues in right/wrong either/or terms, but weighing subtle differences in arguments.

Lunsford, Andrea. "Cognitive Development and the Basic Writer." CE 41 (Sept. 1979): 38-46.

Lunsford sees basic writers as lacking in the ability to infer and to generalize from raw data. She uses a Piagetian scheme to describe their development, and suggests that assignments force students to analyze data, and that students should write argumentative papers which will spur the development of logical and analytical thought more than will narrative or descriptive writing.

Smith, Frank. Writing and the Writer. 2nd ed. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1994.

Smith's book focuses on the motivation for writing, as well as on how writing is accomplished. Chapter one, "Why Write?" explores the various expressive, communicative, and descriptive functions of language both for personal and cultural uses. Chapter two, "Writing: Collaboration and Competition," discusses the differences between compositon (what is said in writing) and transcription (what must be done to say it, e.g., the physical effort of writing). Smith, believing these two activities can interfere with one another, recommends separating composition and transcription, with transcription coming last. The next five chapters go into great detail regarding the complexities of how thought, which cannot be directly observed, is related to language. Language, Smith says, is not thought itself, but it does influence thought as it is produced, and it allows us to reflect on our thoughts. So, while we cannot observe the process of thought directly, we can observe the products of thought through writing. After Smith describes in the first seven chapters the process of writing, he confronts in chapter eight the procedural and psychological blocks that can interfere with that process.

The next four chapters discuss the materials--physical and mental--necessary for writing. Smith includes a lengthy discussion of computers and writing; and he discusses the conditions necessary for learning to write--demonstration, engagement, and sensitivity. The last chapter, "The Writing Teacher," offers practical and insightful advice for teachers. Smith suggests that teachers do and can play a critical role in helping writers, but it is a different, more subtle role than many are used to. Writing, he says, is fostered, not taught. Therefore, teachers might focus on providing an environment in which students will want to write by demonstrating writing and by looking at how and what students are learning rather than formally evaluating them.