TABLA 14 PARA LA IDA

The planning phase for academic writing involves a range of processes that provide the ground work for the translating stage. Planning requires ideas to be generated from ‘probes’ from the long term memory and, as discussed in chapter two (page 88), these generate three retrievals before the associative chains are broken (Hayes & Flower, 1980). Researchers such as Galbraith (2009, p. 60) have argued that the process of idea generation is more complex than Hayes and Flower (1980) suggest

173 where he proposes that it is the strength between the ‘units’ of knowledge, that allows for connections to be made, much like the links between practice and theory, for knowledge transformation to occur in the development of writing. Whilst these concepts have provided a conceptual backdrop for the analysis process, the focus of this study was on whether the participants undertook planning as an early stage of mapping their cognition into a page of text, and if they did, how this was captured. For academic writing, the writer cannot rely solely on their memory to generate ideas for their work and there is a need for the writer to seek out further information from a variety of sources, which for work-based learners may include practice illustrations and wider literature. Epting et al. (2013) make clear that there are correlated connections between writers who are proficient, experienced readers and the competency of the writer. It would therefore be reasonable, based on the work of Epting et al., to assume that a proficient reader is one who accesses a wide range of texts. As such, the link between a proficient reader and a competent writer is due, I argue, to the increase in connections with prior knowledge, which may include practice knowledge, with the ideas generated from reading which affords the deepening of understandings; the extending of knowledge of what is already known. Engagement with the literature supports the writer through the modelling of writing styles, phrases and vocabulary allowing for a wider bank of resources to be drawn upon when undertaking writing for planning, translating and reviewing. To some degree, it supports the notion of a ‘future’ text (Chanquoy, 2009); a point of reference for what the text may look like, as discussed on page 39. The increased access to ideas from the reading of sources, for some writers, may minimise the need for detailed planning in a formalised, externalised way prior to text production, as the retrieval of ideas is essentially easier. On the other hand, for some writers the volume of ideas may be overloading and requires different skills of making decisions to what is required for the text in response to the rhetorical goal, as previously illustrated with Isobel. Writers who adopt the approach of less planning time prior to text production require the undertaking of more conceptual planning during the composition process

174 (Epting et al., 2013, p. 253), resulting in more transformational learning during the writing process. Galbraith (2009) (see page 88) makes a correlation between writers who do not plan in any depth being low self-monitors and who generate more ideas for the written task with the potential for knowledge transformation in undertaking the writing. High self-monitors are more likely to be hindered by their awareness of the rhetorical goal and can be restricted in knowledge transformation. In Galbraith’s research, the coherence of drafts was more evident for low self-monitors than high self-monitors (2009). As such the writer has to be continually mindful of the assignment task and the required outcomes. The characteristic of an academic assignment is that it includes analysis, evaluation and synthesis together within an argument about the given topic under discussion as part of the task. The challenge for the learner is to incorporate all of these elements, including practice illustrations and evidence from the literature, which makes for a demanding cognitive task.

For those writers who engage in planning prior to text production, the planning phase represents the first stage in externalising these ideas into diagrams or notes. The notes may be made up of single words or whole paragraphs of text dependent on the writer’s approach, which are then followed by the ordering and structuring of these to respond to the assignment task. Each of the participants utilised a highly individualised approach and these often changed throughout the course of their studies in terms of volume and method of planning; with some learners using very minimal planning at the beginning, involving an approach of recursively conceptually planning, translating and reviewing at each section, as described earlier, and were termed as low planners. The writers who plan for a whole assignment prior to composition were referred to as high planners. The radar graph data show the extent of the differences between the low planners and the high planners (20 point difference) across the sample. For the final tutorial the radar graph shows that the three lowest planners (Tom, Zoe, Amber) scored zero for planning which was categorised as not having commented on planning in that tutorial. This negative data may be interpreted that the learners did not view planning as a core aspect of their writing processes which correlates with the low

175 scores for the other tutorials. The learners who scored the lowest for planning also scored the highest for grades overall. This correlates with the findings from Galbraith (2009) where those achieving higher grades must, therefore, be able to show analysis, evaluation and synthesis in their work and which represent higher cognitive skills. As such, the higher level cognitive skills indicate transformational learning in line with the rhetorical goal of the assignment.

Tom planned the least, scoring five in the radar graph. He commented that: ‘I think you can spend too long planning something and it

gets lost in the essay, so I kind of think now I just try and start writing or…and see what evolves from it, and then actually look up if- if, cos my essay might take me a whole different direction than it would do if I was planning it’ (Transcript 3, Tom).

Tom acknowledged here the role of knowledge transformation in the writing process, rather than knowledge telling. His need for the writing to ‘evolve’ points to the organic nature of the writing process for him and was significant to the deep learning approach that he demonstrated. This organic approach to text production means that a plan was purposeless where he can spend too much time in creating one that then became surplus to requirement as the composition gets underway. Likewise, Zoe’s perception of the role of the plan was one that in tutorial 2 had become a constraint rather than a supporting process:

‘That worked for me [previously having a plan], but then I feel like I have cheated a bit, that’s why I am really pleased with the mark, because I didn’t really have a plan as such, I just sort of jumped ship and left it, if that makes sense on that one’ (Transcript 2, Zoe).

Zoe’s feeling of ‘jumping ship’ or moving away from having a plan outlined her sense that planning was part of the process and that she needed to continue to do it, using the word ‘cheated’ as an expression of this. Her sense of not following the plan caused her to feel she had ‘cheated’, especially as she got 72% for the assignment referred to.

176 The notion of ‘cheating’ is interesting and may be attributed to the pedagogy within the academy and formal schooling which points to using a detailed plan to write. Here Zoe indicates that because she had not undertaken this, that she had not followed the identified practice to writing and had therefore ‘cheated’. Zoe’s perception of having ‘cheated’ was underpinned by her belief about the processes of writing (Lavelle & Guarino, 2003, p. 296). This may be a powerful insight into how pedagogical approaches in formal education may constrain rather than support early academic writers which was evident in Zoe’s commentary. On the other hand, Zoe’s response was different to Tom’s approach which was more accepting of the pragmatics of time alongside his understanding of the way he worked most effectively to produce text. I used the opportunity of the tutorial to reassure Zoe that a plan was only necessary if it was supportive of the writing process. At this stage of the programme, I felt that Zoe was unsure of what was a successful strategy, irrespective of the high grade achieved for an assignment where she had not stuck to her plan. Zoe declared the need to have everything organised in her head before she started the writing process, ‘I wanna like understand it myself in my head before I try to write it’ (Transcript 3, Zoe). She had a need ‘to sort of think I know it before I go for it’ (Transcript 2, Zoe). The time spent thinking about the ideas she had along with the reading she had undertaken was often captured through the use of an audiotape. Zoe is a single mother who has a young son who had been ill (Appendix B) who demanded much of her time, her physical and mental energy. She talked to me about a strategy where she used an audio tape to capture the ideas she had so that she did not forget them. The externalising of ideas using a verbal means is a form of planning, or thinking through the ideas under scrutiny. Zoe frequently did this when she returned home from BGU taught sessions and her mind was full of ideas. In tutorial 2, she recalled:

177 ‘When I have my uni night, because you are so busy

thinking of planning for work or what’s in my [her son’s name] routine kind of thing, as so as you come back it sort of refreshes you a bit when you’re sat and you hear the input of everyone else [in class], you have all these ideas start going off, and I know that I will get home, start thinking about uniforms and forget, sort of thing. So I do go to my dad, ‘this is what I’ve done, this is what’, and he’s like, why aren’t you recording it, so I record my conversation with my dad and it’s him going ‘yep, mmmm’, and not really saying anything, but it’s just getting it all out’ (Transcript 2, Zoe).

‘And I can just keep playing it through and think, that’s what I was thinking, that’s what I wanted to go down and its clearer than… because you can write notes and look back and think, well what was the point of me… do you know what I mean? What was the point of that? When you say it, I think it…’ (Transcript 2, Zoe).

The demand on Zoe’s memory was assisted through the use of an audiotape to enable the recall of ideas and prevented cognitive overload. She expressed some concern that even despite having the audio recording that she still ‘lost focus’ when composing the text and did not stick to her original ideas. Like Tom, she showed evidence of organically creating writing from ideas generated from practice, the literature and taught sessions on the programme where her thinking was changed through the process of writing. Although unlike Tom, she was less confident to relinquish prior planning altogether despite its diminishing purpose for her.

Rose, Lucy and Mary showed a decrease in planning overall. Rose was the second highest for planning across the sample and seventh for grades overall which again showed correlation between levels of prior planning and grade outcome. In the second tutorial, there appeared to be a recognisable change in the way that Rose approached her writing where there were two written assignments as part of the module. She discussed how when there was more than one written assignment piece

178 to be undertaken, how she had had to approach them differently to other module assessments in the respect of having more limited use of planning. For the first assignment in this module, Rose just wrote a first draft without a plan. However, on re-reading it, she was close to deleting the whole draft and thought it was ‘tosh’ (Transcript 2, Rose) but due to time pressures of nearing the submission date, she decided to seek support from a tutor to assist her in editing it. This proved successful and after some revision of the draft and the inclusion of some further additions, the work achieved 57%. Rose talked about how she felt relieved that she had not discarded the first draft to start again. In the second assignment for this module, Rose had again abandoned the usual strategy of a big poster plan that would take many weeks to generate, and used a ‘brainstormy plan’ instead that she commented she was ‘not immersed in’, or busy highlighting as previously was her strategy. However, she remained dissatisfied with this is an effective writing approach as, to her, the writing lacked focus:

‘So I’d done my planning, so I knew you know, which bits were going to go in which sections, blah blah blah, and I had written, I don’t know how many words, and I just thought, I’m just going a bit waffle –y again, so I just sat down and just thought, no just on another complete sheet of paper, just write down what it is you want to say and that, kind of, focused me a little bit more, but it didn’t necessarily cut out all of the waffle like I wanted it to, which is why I think I keep coming back to thinking, get it done a week before so I…so somebody can look at it and go ‘yeah just cut out that waffle-y section’, cut out that and focus, you know, because I feel like for this report I’d focussed well. And I managed to cut out the waffle-ness, but maybe that will just come with practice’ (Transcript 2, Rose).

Rose’s perception of a lack of focus resonated with Zoe and suggested discomfort with the organic nature of the writing process despite the success of the overall grade. The time spent in the revision stage was significant and will be discussed further in subsequent sections of this chapter. Despite her unease of moving away from a detailed plan, Rose did show evidence of reducing the amount of planning that was

179 undertaken overall, reducing from a large A3 detailed plan to more of a list as evidenced in the final tutorial:

‘I have my plan- and I have my… my kind of list of things that I know I’ve got to include, and I’ll lots of little quotes and things that I know I’ve got to pull in’ (Transcript 4, Rose).

Mary scored highly for planning at the first tutorial (score=7), and scored zero for tutorials 2 and 3 which skews the data for this category overall, however this offers an interesting insight where the final score for planning in tutorial 4 (score= 4) which showed a decrease in planning between first and final tutorials. She declared in the first tutorial that she used her practice as a starting point for her writing and the generation of ideas where she could. She used academic reading, particularly the identified directed reading for taught sessions, and the internet to generate a rough plan. Mary commented that at this stage which aspects of the literature would be included at each section of the assignment within the plan, ensuring that she offered a range of perspectives where possible. Mary explained that she used a range of books to think about a concept, especially if she found one challenging to understand and sought out this in another text to see if she could comprehend the concept better written by another author. Mary’s approach to planning drew in a range of sources in the idea generation phase that supported her understandings and a map of these provided the template for the translation phase. Mary did not discuss whether her ideas changed in the process of prior planning to text production, or in the composition phase itself, unlike Tom and Zoe, although she ranks fifth for grades which indicated that she was able to demonstrate analysis, evaluation and synthesis in her writing overall. The negative data is relevant here and requires acknowledgment as what was not stated in a tutorial, does not necessarily mean that this approach to writing was not undertaken.

180 Rachel scored the highest for planning, the lowest for academic confidence and eleventh for grade average across the sample. Her dyslexia made the structuring of her ideas more challenging. The structural aspects of her writing may be attributed to her planning strategy:

‘…um, but if I do a plan and then start writing, and then do another bit of a plan, and then write again, it seems to work, um…’ (Transcript 1, Rachel).

This approach meant that Rachel planned for and wrote a small section, reviewed it the following day and then repeated this process for the next section. She explained that this strategy had been due to the differences of writing between Further Education (FE) College and HE:

‘… cos these, this, words count is um, bigger obviously than when I was at college, and there was like different little bits in college rather than at uni it’s just one big… um, so I kinda just thought if I do the introduction, right that out, and then different one…, I find it easier that way’ (Transcript 1, Rachel).

In order to manage the larger word count in assignments from when she was at FE College to an HE programme, Rachel segmented the whole essay structure into smaller sections that were seen as stand-alone units of writing. This strategy was in some aspects similar to the organic and recursive strategy used by Tom and Zoe although given Rachel’s grade profile by comparison required closer scrutiny. Whilst supporting the generation of writing, through sectioning the content, Rachel’s approach inhibited a holistic structure within the assignment task. It also became clear that the sections of writing were not necessarily undertaken in any linear, cohesive way such as introduction, central points, conclusion etc. as evidenced in the final