Pedagogical practices informing process writing draw from psychological, cognitive explanations of how adult writers construct texts (Beard, et al., 2009; Flower & Hayes, 1981). Flower and Hayes’ (1981) model challenged previous theories which had supported a compositional, linear, staged model of writing that centred on the final product and ignored “the inner process of the person producing it … the more intimate, moment-by-moment, intellectual process of composing (p. 367).
Cognitive theorists described writing as a recursive process, one where the writer’s mental processes reflected cognitive decisions as they generated, shaped and reviewed text. These theorists argued that writing was a problem-solving, rhetorical process that recognised the writer’s prior experiences and knowledge. Writing was goal-directed, according to the purpose and the task set. Three major elements formed the basis: the task environment, the writer’s long-term memory and the writing processes. Flower and Hayes (1981) explained, “the task environment included all those things outside the writer’s skin, starting with the rhetorical problem or assignment and eventually including the growing text itself” (p. 369). The writer was expected to consider the topic being written about, the audience and the writer’s own goals because,
As the composing proceeds, a new element enters the task environment, which places even more constraint upon what the writer can say. Just as the title constrains the content of a paper and a topic sentence shapes the options of a paragraph, each word in the growing text determines and limits the choices of what can come next. (p. 371)
The writer’s knowledge of writing and the topic content, it was claimed, was stored in the long-term memory, “which can exist in the mind as well as in outside resources such as books” (p. 371), in what some would argue as a distributive view of cognition. The writer had to retrieve,
36
reorganise and adapt the material to fit the demands of the rhetorical problem.
The third element of writing related to the writing processes – planning, translating and reviewing. These were seen as being controlled by a monitor or brain function. Key to the cognitive model, these writing processes translated to classroom practice. Writers were perceived as constructing a message, moving recursively in and out of the three processes of planning, composing and translating, reviewing and revising. Each of these complex acts influenced or constrained other writing acts. Flower and Hayes (1981) elaborated on the three writing processes. They argued that “in the planning process writers form an internal representation of the knowledge that will be used in writing” (p. 372). The representation or schema was stored as a linguistic, visual or perceptual code that the writer then captured as words.
Planning internal representations involved the sub-processes of generating ideas, organising ideas and goal setting. Generating ideas for planning required retrieving relevant information from long-term memory (an important skill for young writers), and was dependent on children’s lived and imaginary experiences, and their ability to retrieve these and talk about them. Organising ideas or adapting information to the rhetorical task was regarded as pivotal involving mental processes of categorising and ordering concepts inherent to the topic, as well as making decisions related to the whole-text structure. Goal setting, a sub- process of planning, provided a focus and guided writers throughout the recursive composing and revision processes. Goals that writers set themselves were both procedural and substantive (related to the topic) and provided a map to create ongoing internal dialogue as the students developed and refined their writing. Flower and Hayes (1981) argued that, “defining one’s own rhetorical problem and setting goals is an
37
important part of being creative and can account for some important differences between good and poor writers” (p. 373): young writers often required teacher support to write to a predetermined goal (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1982; Clay, 1975; Dix, 2003b; Fox, 2001).
The second recursive writing process of translating was described by these theorists as “essentially the process of putting ideas into visible language” (Flower & Hayes, 1981, p. 373). The writers’ task was to translate a meaning held, which may have existed as an image, a feeling, an emotion or kinetic sensation, into a linear piece of written text.
Reviewing, the third key writing process, was described as two sub- processes of evaluating and revising. A reviewing process might generate more text or lead to changes. For beginner writers, this process is demanding as many find it difficult to distance themselves from their writing, and evaluate from a reader’s perspective (Graves, 1979). Writers who constantly review against their goals (ever-changing as they may be) were regarded as reflective, flexible writers, who confidently “messed” with their writing at the whole-text level (Coe, 1986; Dix, 2003b; Faigley & Witte, 1981). The monitor (brain function) determined when a writer could move from one process to the next, influenced by “both by the writer’s goals and by individual writing habits or styles” (Flower & Hayes, 1981, p. 374). An awareness of students’ metacognitive processing is an important consideration for teachers designing scaffolds. The ability or inability of writers to access and use their mental processes was seen to have the potential to influence the quality of writing.
Theorists of cognitive perspectives acknowledge that novice and fluent writers operated differently (Dix, 2005, 2006; Faigley & Witte, 1981; Hayes & Flowers, 1986; Parr, 1991; Smith & Elley, 1997; Sommers, 1980). Learning to write is recognised as a complex developmental learning
38
process (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1982; Clay, 1975; Dix, 2003b; Fox, 2001) necessitating expert teaching of beginner writers (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1982; Cambourne, 1988; Clay, 1975, 1998; Fox, 2001). Young writers face many complex challenges. They must juggle the complex skills inherent in written English, that is, implement the conventions of print, along with managing the syntactical structures of English grammar, recording the phoneme-grapheme mapping in words, while recognising the regularities and irregularities of spelling, along with the motor tasks required to form letters, while still holding the planning process to the forefront. Clay (1975) explained that, “all features of the language hierarchy must, inevitably, receive attention as the child builds letters into words, words into phrases and phrases into sentences and stories” (p. 2). While this becomes an automatic process for fluent writers, it is a demanding task for young writers who must consciously focus on controlling these early literacy skills. The process approach, as set out in Dancing with the pen (Ministry of Education, 1992) acknowledges the progression of developmental learning skills describing writers as at the emergent, early or fluent stage.
2.2.2 Writer Discourse: A New Zealand model for teaching and