Summary

of A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing by Linda Flower and John R. Hayes This article introduces Linda Flower and John Hayess cognitive process theory of writing which they developed out of evidence based on think-aloud protocols, transcripts of recordings of writers who verbalize everything that goes through their minds as they write, including stray notions, false starts, and incomplete or fragmentary thoughts (p. 368). The main idea is that writers call on a set of thinking and creative processes any of which might occur at any point while they are composing a piece of writing. Flower and Hayes tell us that writers are constantly planning (pre-writing) and revising (re- writing) as they compose (write) (p. 367), but they also stress that people do not march through these processes in a simple 1, 2, 3 order (p. 375). A writer can use and re-use a small number of simple processes, the basic ones being plan, translate, and review (p. 376) either in succession or recursively that is, embedded one in another, perhaps several times over to produce a whole range of different texts and kinds of writing. Flower and Hayes also propose that as they are writing writers create a hierarchical network of goals which might include high-level goals such as "write an introduction" as well as local working goals like "explain things simply (p. 377). These goals may shift and interact as the process of composition proceeds. For example, as they compose, [writers] continually return or "pop" back up to their higher-level goals. And these higher-level goals give direction and coherence to their next move (p. 379). Flower and Hayes discuss three strategies for writing composition which they regard as typical: State and Develop, Explore and Consolidate and Write and Regenerate. The pattern of State and Develop amounts to the conventional idea of planning a piece of writing stating a high-level goal then fleshing this out with sub-goals, perhaps in the form of a flow chart or a concept diagram. For Explore and Consolidate Flower and Hayes give the example of a teacher preparing an essay about his job by first considering the nature of his job as a teacher then using these thoughts to create a clear definition of what he wants to achieve in his essay. The Write and Regenerate method is similar to Explore and Consolidate except that the writer uses something that he or she has actually written to test out ideas and ways of expressing them. In reviewing composed text writers can sometimes generate new goals as well as improving the expression of their ideas. Flower and Hayess ideas influenced a number of educationalists concerned with the teaching of writing, especially in the USA. In particular, the cognitive process theory of writing was the foundation of the Bay Area Writing Project which began in a small number of schools associated with the University of California Berkeley Campus in Los Angeles then spread throughout the USA, later becoming the National Writing Project. Reference Flower, L. & Hayes, J. R. (1981) A cognitive process theory of writing. College Composition and Communication, 32(4), 365387. John Keen, University of Manchester