Cognitive Process Theory of Writing:Linda Flower and John R. Hayes
understand the nature of rhetorical choices in good and poor writers
theory of the cognitive processes involved in composing
The process of writing is best understood as a set of distinctive thinking processes which writers orchestrate or organize during the act of composing.
These processes have a hierarchical, highly embedded organization in which any given process can be embedded within any other.
The act of composing itself is a goal-directed thinking process, guided by the writer's own growing network of goals.
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.
1.
Stage Models of Writing:
problem with stage descriptions of writing is that they model the growth of the written product, not the inner process of the person producing it.
writers are constantly planning (pre-writing) and revising (re-writing) as they compose (write), not in clean-cut stages: nancy sommers
A Cognitive Process Model:
the major units of analysis are elementary mental processes, such as the process of generating ideas. And these processes have a hierarchical structure; each act may occur at any time
Can then compare the composing strategies of good and poor writers
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 processes.
The Rhetorical Problem:
it includes the rhetorical situation and audience which prompts one to write, and the writer's own goals in writing
Written Text:
the growing text makes large demands on the writer's time and attention during composing.
it is competing with two other forces which could and also should direct the composing process; the writer's knowledge stored in long-term memory and the writer's plans for dealing with the rhetorical problem
The Long-Term Memory:
storehouse of knowledge about the topic and audience, as well as knowledge of writing plans and problem representations
Planning:
writers form an internal representation of the knowledge that will be used in writing
generating ideas: includes retrieving relevant information from long-term memory
organizing: helping the writer make meaning, that is, give a meaningful structure to ideas
Goal-setting: generated, developed, and revised by the same processes that generate and organize new ideas
Translating:
requires the writer to juggle all the special demands of written English
Info generated in planning may be represented in a variety of symbol systems other than language, such as imagery or kinetic sensations
Reviewing:
depends on two sub-processes: evaluating and revising
The Monitor:
functions as a writing strategist which determines when the writer moves from one process to the next
2.
A hierarchical system is one in which a large working system such as com-posing can subsume other less inclusive systems, such as generating ideas, which in turn contain still other systems, and so on.
3.
process goals and content goals
content goals grow into an increasingly elaborate network of goals and subgoals as the writer composes
These networks have three important features:
1. They are created as people compose, throughout the entire process
2. The goal-directed thinking that produces these networks takes many forms
3. writers not only create a hierarchical network of guiding goals,but, as they compose, they continually return or "pop" back up to their higher-level goals
4.
The structure of knowledge for some topic becomes more conscious and assertive as we keep tapping memory for related ideas.
sub-goals give concrete meaning and direction to their more abstract top-level goals
explore and consolidate
state and develop
Write and regenerate