International Journal of Educational Research 87 (2018) 127–137

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International Journal of Educational Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedures

Writing on writing
T
Abigail B. Calkin
Calkin Consulting Center, Gustavus, AK, United States

AR TI CLE I NF O AB S T R A CT

Keywords: It is uncommon to find a behavior analytic or scientific analysis of creativity or of creative

Writing behaviors of people in the arts. This article looks at the use of direct instruction to teach writing
Process and product to elementary through high school students. It also includes analyses of the author’s writing
Generativity behaviors across three years while writing works of creative nonfiction, behavior analysis
Creativity
articles, and poetry. The analyses include frequency, celeration, and variability of behavioral and
Inner behavior
Thoughts
environmental events. The project shows that the processes of writing (generating new ideas,
Standard celeration charting (SCC) thinking about writing) and the products (words written, edits made) can be analyzed
Frequency behaviorally.
Celeration
Bounce
Effects of death on behavior
Teaching writing

What occurs in writing behaviors before the printed word reaches an audience? I work and write in two separate fields—behavior
analysis, and within that precision teaching; and the literary realm of fiction, narrative nonfiction, and poetry. Being steeped in
analyzing behavior and counting events in life, I spend much time thinking about the writing process and product.
In writing about his writing, American novelist, Wallace (1977) shared a table of pages written per day and discussed how he kept
the chart for self-discipline purposes. Writing is a solitary endeavor without employer and usually without deadlines. Writing an
article or book under conditions of few if any external consequences, other than that of potential long-term success, puts the writer in
a unique place. As Wallace said, he kept his record a secret as his colleagues might consider it “eccentric or unliterary” (p. 517). He
later learned, a number of other writers also keep similar records. One he did not mention was Benjamin Franklin (1791/1962) who
kept a detailed record of daily habits about life and work-related pursuits. Pear, who wrote the introduction and commentary to the
Wallace article, displayed data from the writing process of three of Wallace’s books on a cumulative record (1957/1999).
However, too often, literary authors who analyze writing processes come up short just before analyzing behavior. Bayles and
Orland (1993) stated, “Between the initial idea and the finished piece lies a gulf we can see across, but never fully chart” (p. 51). Not
only have some behavior analysts, such as Pear (Wallace, 1977) and Skinner (1953), looked into that gulf, I also have plunged into
the middle of it and charted the waters of those ideas in addition to the frequency of words written per day. As a writer, I examine
how I write, teach children ages of 7 to 18—how to write well, and am aware of my own writing process. My instruction has included
less structured writers’ workshops for children in primary grades as well as teaching thinking and writing more formally to children
from the fourth grade through high school. I also have analyzed my writing a narrative nonfiction book about commercial fishing,
with a specific look at and analysis of four writing behaviors—has creative writing idea, thinks about writing, writes words, and edits
manuscript. The value of stating these in the present tense active voice is to show that each behavior is an action. I define these
behaviors later. The value of counting and charting these four behaviors was to use a behavior analytic approach to view the details
of the behaviors and frequencies of elements of creative writing.

E-mail address: abc@abigailbcalkin.com.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2017.05.002
Received 18 April 2016; Received in revised form 3 May 2017; Accepted 9 May 2017
Available online 23 May 2017
0883-0355/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A.B. Calkin International Journal of Educational Research 87 (2018) 127–137

1.

Behavior analysis rightly prides itself on the most objective analysis of behavior to date (Johnston & Pennypacker, 1993; Lindsley,
2010; Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2007; Kubina & Yurich, 2012; Vargas, 2009). Most people, however, assume that writing involves
something subjective and lacks objectivity (Bayles & Orland, 1993). They further assume that writing is, therefore, out of the reach of
behavior analysis. Radical behaviorism shows that this is not true. A methodological behaviorist states that we can only study
behavior that we can observe directly in the environment (Donahoe & Palmer, 2004). Malott, Malott, and Trojan (2000) also state
that methodological behaviorism needs a second observer to any behavior. In contrast, a radical behaviorist states that an individual
can observe his or her inner behaviors (private events). As early as 1945, Skinner stated “…we must be content with reasonable
evidence for the belief that responses to public and private stimuli are equally lawful and alike in kind” (p. 420). O. R. Lindsley
(personal communication, March 1999) stated that millions of data points gave us thousands of pieces of information about human
behavior (Lindsley et al., 1973).,He called them Laws of Human Behavior. The data—millions of second, minute, daily, weekly,
monthly, and yearly frequencies—have provided the information that allows us to state these inductively discovered truths about
human behavior as Laws of Behavior (Calkin, 2003).
Data from over 800 standard celeration charts (hereafter called SCC) by 2009, and now over 1000 charts, show that the
frequency, celeration (growth across time), and bounce (variability) of inner behaviors are as consistent across individuals and time
as is any outer or public behavior (Calkin, 2009). Behavior is behavior whether inside or outside the skin. The mind-body dualism
promoted by philosophers such as Plato and Descartes is false when we look at data. I have come to the conclusion that there is no
line between the “mind”—the behavior of thoughts, feelings, urges, and all sensory perceptions—and the outward behavior of a
person. These thoughts, feelings, urges, sensory perceptions and the outward behavior of a person lie on a continuum.
Intrigued and never satisfied with the idea of a closed and unknown “black box,”—the idea that I have environment shaping my
behavior but never know what occurs in some unknown gulf, or “black box,” between a stimulus and the behavior—I pried at the
edges of this alleged gulf by counting creative writing ideas and thoughts about writing. These are only two of very many inner behaviors.
Hundreds of people have counted, charted, and researched inner behavior1 (Calkin, 1979, 1981, 1992, 2000, 2002, 2009; Conser,
1981; Cooper, 1991; Dean, 1973; Duncan, 1971; Sokolove, 1973; Stromberg, 1974; Kubina, Haertel, & Cooper, 1994; Kostewicz,
Kubina, & Cooper 2000; Cobane, 2006; Patterson, 2008; Rich, 2009.)
To go beyond Wallace (1977) and other authors who kept track of pages written per day, radical behavior analysts can plunge into
the world of apparently amorphous data when we begin to look at cognition, comprehension, and creation in arts or sciences. These
areas are not easy to analyze, but none deserves the appellation of “amorphous.” The study and research of astronomy and the aurora
borealis and australis had their beginnings in the vagaries of indefinable occurrences, that is, until the scientists observed repeating
patterns. Analysis of any behavior—inner, public, astronomical—brings it to the level of a natural science. Collect data, a lot of it,
analyze it, refine the pinpointed behavior if necessary, collect more data, and continue. When analyzed, then we see how specific is
auroral or writing behavior.
One of the aspects of behavior analysis that has enabled the study of inner behavior is precision teaching and its SCC (Kelly,
2016). Lindsley and a small group of his graduate students developed the SCC in the mid-1960s in Kansas. Based on Lindsley’s
mathematical and engineering background, this group developed a daily semi-logarithmic chart and began to investigate the learning
of special education students. Within a couple of years, they continued using the SCC with regular education students, graduate
students, behavior management issues, and inner behaviors. Examples of the SCC are in Figs. 5–7. Figs. 5 and 6 are daily charts. Fig. 7
is a monthly chart. Each chart has the count per time on the vertical (y) axis, and the regular intervals of calendar time across the
horizontal (x) axis. The formula for calculating frequency is standard in any science: F = c/t—frequency equals count divided by
time. The fact that the SCC is standard, enables anyone to look at celeration, or growth of learning across time, that is, count per
minute per week. Because the chart is standard, it also makes it possible to look at the bounce (variability) of behavior. Does this
bounce have a narrow and regular range, or does it have much variability or several spikes? Most of the 16,376 analyzed charts from
Behavior Research Company are from the academic learning of students from ages five years through university graduate level
(Lindsley, Koenig, & Nichols, 1973). Most of the charts involve behavior fairly simple to observe—reads words correctly and reads
words incorrectly, writes digits to answer math problems, again correctly and incorrectly. Precision teaching, or as Lindsley et al.
(1973) termed it, Precise Behavior Measurement, developed what constituted fluent behavior in reading, math, penmanship,
comprehension, science, writing, and other academic behaviors. When a person reaches the aim of fluent behavior, then s/he had the
foundation to move to the next skill level of learning (Calkin, 2012a). The website for Aims Instruction (Amey, 2013), a learning
center that uses precision teaching, shows examples of students working toward fluent behavior. However, there are less easily
analyzed and observed behaviors that all of us do—comprehend, think, feel, have an urge, perceive the world in which we live, and in
some instances, use higher level thinking skills. The focus here is primarily writing, early creativity, and the accompanying inner
behaviors, which, although small in the number of research study charts—1000 inner behaviors today vs. 16,000 outer and inner
behaviors in 1973—still behave the way outer behaviors do.
The premise that we need two people to observe behavior nullifies the possibility of looking at any inner behaviors. However,
statistical analyses of the inner behavior charts from these research studies clearly show that reports of inner behavior have
dimensions of frequency, celeration, and bounce just as outer, public behaviors do (Calkin 2009; Lindsley et al., 1973). The statistical

1
Several of these cited Journal of Precision Teaching & Celeration Journal of Precision Teaching & Celeration articles, and many more in multiple areas from 1980 to
2005, are available at http://precisionteaching.pbworks.com/w/page/18241124/The%20Journal%20of%20Precision%20Teaching%20and%20Celeration

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similarities of inner behavior charts to those of outer, or public, behavior charts are now undeniable. Laid side by side with no labels,
the difference between them is indiscernible.
Skinner (1957/1999) devoted several chapters to the discussion of thinking, writing, and editing. Different from some authors, he
not only took his examples from the natural sciences, but also from literature and other arts. He points out that the everyday and
scientific communities punish many thoughts in the “flight of ideas.” They are, I add, also punished, or eliminated, by the thinker. I
once told a 13-year-old boy that we all had many ideas in a day that didn’t work. To emphasize the point, I filled a blank sheet of
paper with about 100 quickly made hash marks. He took the pencil out of my hand as I reached the bottom of the paper, circled one,
and quietly declared, “This is the one that will work.” The others, of course, the creative artist punishes out of existence by ignoring
them. As a scientist or artist (whether in the literary, music, or visual arts realm), we take that one idea, or two, and hone it to
excellence, or if really lucky, to perfection. Marr (2003) used the term behavioral synthesis. Epstein (2009) has long called it
generativity and through his work, he has helped organizations engineer creativity on behalf of employees. Johnson and Street
(2004) used the term generativity. Andronis, Layng, and Goldiamond (1997) called it adduction, the unprompted, not taught
behavior that brings together separate learned skills and combines them into a novel behavior or new solution. This is creativity in
learning and thinking behavior. It is the serendipitous, or colloquially, the “ah-ha” moment.
In their review of 20 studies of creativity, Winston and Baker (1985) commented, “Surprisingly, the sequences of behavior
involved in the process of creating are rarely, if ever, subjected to direct analysis by behavior analytic or traditional researchers”
(p.203). Typical measurement in these studies was rating scales and subjective rankings. This paper, which examines student writing
and the daily frequencies of writing behaviors of an author, is unique in the field. In addition to just the response topography, we can
see and analyze writing behaviors. The focus here is not to define the processes of creativity, but to examine behaviorally how to
teach people to write and to look at the process of writing from the nugget of an idea to the published product.
Creativity is a behavioral synthesis, a serendipitous moment of apparent revelation. However, serendipitous moments do not
occur without many hours of much accumulation of knowledge so that we often come to call it luck. A commercial fisherman called it
a lucky hunch when he untangled his nets out at sea. He had been repairing an engine problem and had told his deckhand to watch
the way the boat and nets were drifting. The deckhand didn’t watch carefully enough. What should the captain do? Relying on
knowledge that came from years of experience and his “lucky” hunch, he turned his boat in the direction the porpoises were
swimming. Luck and hunch had nothing to do with it. His intelligence, years of experience at sea, and knowledge of the behavior of
ocean waters and porpoises in those waters all came together in a serendipitous moment, a fisherman’s moment of synthesizing his
knowledge, a behavioral synthesis we call creative thinking. More broadly, previously rewarded thoughts, facts, knowledge,
behaviors, and contingencies—the interaction between the behavior and the environment—come together as an apparent unit and
develop into new frames and relationships that allow an individual to come up with the correct solution, be it a commercial fisherman
in a difficult spot, Shakespeare developing new words, or Oppenheimer in the early 1940s working on the development of the atomic
bomb. These contingencies include the event that happens before or during the behavior, the behavior itself, and the consequence
that follows the behavior whether that consequence is a reward or a punishment.
Most of the information available about writing within behavior analysis concerns the creative process. Winston and Baker
(1985), Marr (2003), Kubina, Morrison, & Lee (2006) examined creativity. Maar, using examples from science and the arts, reviewed
the source of creative behaviors and how we account for individual differences. Kubina et al. studied the manner in which behavior
analytic methods can analyze creative behavior. These investigators examined the creative process—what may occur during creative
thoughts or behaviors, but they did not look at creative products themselves, for example, the number of creative ideas a person has
in a day, or as a result of those ideas, the number of pages or words written. It is important for behavior analysts to look at data on
writing.

2. Morningside writing

Established in 1980 by Johnson in Seattle, Washington, Morningside Academy is a laboratory school providing education to
students in elementary and middle school, ages 6 to 14.2 Based on its foundation of precision teaching (Calkin, 2005;
Kubina & Yurich, 2012; Pennypacker, Gutierrez, & Lindsley, 2003) and generative instruction (Johnson & Street, 2004), it also
provides teacher training and education across the US and Canada to a variety of schools through its outreach program, Morningside
Teachers Academy. Embedded within the teaching of reading, English, math, and other subjects lie careful analyses of the progression
of component and composite skills, which include the foundational elements for any particular skill and a careful and progressive
teaching analysis of the skills a student needs for school success. For example, writing the alphabet is not sufficient in itself. Students
must form the letters correctly and reach a speed of writing them correctly between 110 and 90 per minute. People using SCCs have
made some interesting discoveries about learning. In the 1960s, those who used the SCC thought that reading at a frequency of 100
words per min. was sufficient to move to the next level. Morningside Academy is one of the schools that learned that when students
read orally at 200 words per min, they understand the material better and progress to the next level more quickly. Likewise, when a
student writes letters between 110 and 90 per min, this indicates that he does not need to think about the formation of the letters and,
thus, letters become a tool for writing words and ideas. These unpublished but in-house aims were developed by at least five different
schools (Calkin, 2012a).

2
www.morningsideacademy.org/about-morningside-academy.

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Fig. 1. Ken’s description of good learning.

3. Morningside writing at riverside indian school

During the first decade of the 21st century, work in writing at Riverside Indian School began in its lowest grade level, fourth
grade. Based on an earlier model of the Morningside Academy writing programs, the Riverside elementary writing program primarily
consisted of skill building beginning with retelling a story as a group, retelling it to a peer while also writing down details and
sequence, editing these ideas, and finally writing the finished product.
By seventh and eighth grades, after students read the story silently, s/he then retold it to a peer using paraphrases and not the
words in the story. Again, using elements of precision teaching, the frequency aim was to retell the story at 25 to 20 ideas per minute.
After the initial writing of details in sequence, each student then wrote two drafts before doing more edits for the final draft. The
results included good organization and flow of ideas. One student wrote his first and second drafts as prose and his final draft as a
poem. Fig. 1 shows an eighth grade writing sample, which was later published (Calkin, Red Elk, Minear, & Fabrizio, 2006). While the
writing is not creative, the student’s idea of how to learn better was creative.
One of the 9th grade English teachers asked students to write a biography. Following the format from Archer’s (2005) writing
activity and incorporating some timing elements of precision teaching, students used the following format.

1. Write words about yourself for 1-min

2. Draw a line and add any more words you may want. (Untimed)
3. Cross out the words you did not want to use. (Untimed)
4. Number the words in the order you want to write. This forms a rough outline. (Untimed)
5. Write the poem during a 10-min timing. The student has the option to continue writing after the 10 min if the writing is not
finished.
6. Edit your writing. (Untimed)

Doug, a ninth grader, wrote an excellent biographical poem, which is an example of how the program uses 1-min and 10-min
writing timings. Fig. 2 shows his 1-min. timing during which he wrote words. The “10” at the top of Doug’s list indicates the number
of words he wrote during that 1 min, the “13” is the number of additional words during the untimed portion. The items he generated
later and decided not to use he crossed out. The sequential numbers on the left side he used to order his thoughts prior to the 10-min
timed writing.
Fig. 3 shows the poem he wrote. Doug did the editing on the poem during the 10-min. timing. His writing frequency in the 10-min
timing was 7.1 correct per min, and 1.6 words per min crossed out. He did not need to use Step 6. Doug determined what were the
correct, or acceptable, words and which were the edits. In my writing behavior across the years, I have observed that the frequency
for words written in poetry is lower than that of prose words written. It is also noteworthy that Doug wrote 7 words per minute on his
first attempt. This is comparable to what Delgado (Delgado, Erickson, & Johnson, 2015) found in her class when a student began his
prose writing.
A 12th grade English class used the same adapted Archer (2005) process. The assigned weekly writings were about Everyman,

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Fig. 2. Doug’s words for his poem. The assignment was to write as many words as each student could think of about him or herself. Ten is how many he wrote in 1 min.
He could then, untimed add more and he added 13. In Step 2, he crossed off those he didn’t want. He ordered them in Step 3.

20th century prose, a character sketch, an autobiography, an essay, a short story, a video critique, The Devil and Tom Walton (Irving,
2008/1824), and a persuasive essay. These writing assignments covered one quarter. In another quarter, students read Pygmalion
(Shaw, 2000/1916), a Sophocles play, and other literature and wrote about them using the same methodology. The teacher achieved
frequencies of about 35 words per min during the prose writing, a very impressive frequency given that many professional authors do
not write prose at more than 20 words per min. The students wrote very well. N’s autobiographical poem is Fig. 4. It is interesting,
and sad, to note that N’s mother died in the middle of his senior year. When he returned from the services, his oral reading
decelerated at a ÷2 celeration3 from over 200 words read per min to 100 per min. His writing behavior did not change but continued

3
A ÷2 celeration indicates that a person’s skills are deteriorating by halving each week, or by a 50% weekly decay.

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Fig. 3. Doug’s untitled biographical poem. All students had 10 min in which to start to write their autobiography. Doug completed his poem, including what he
deleted, in about 7 min. This is his first draft.

Fig. 4. N’s autobiographical poem. He wrote his first draft in 10 min. The teacher did not time his revisions.

at the same frequency. N did not do the third timed daily task—read multisyllabic words, such as disingenuous, lithographic,
chronology, etc., from a list. He quietly put his head on his desk and waited for the next assignment. These behaviors continued for
four weeks before N returned to his more usual behaviors. The charts of his reading and writing behaviors gave insights into the
effects of depression on learning and productivity. It is interesting to note that N’s more creative work was not affected, but routine
behaviors of words read per minute in literature and related word lists were both affected.

4. Present morningside academy comprehension and writing

Two of Morningside’s long-time teachers, Delgado and Erickson, have worked with middle school students to improve their
comprehension and writing skills (Delgado et al., 2015). Delgado and Erickson continue to work with middle school students to

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improve their comprehension and writing about what they read in their reading classes and independent research projects. Through
their training, the students learned the words well enough in or out of context so these words had an immediate impact on their
understanding of connotation and they use the words correctly when writing. Delgado and Erickson initially gave the students 3 min
to plan their writing. The students use context clues, connotations, word usage, and different grammatical forms of the words to write
them into meaningful sentences and essays about what they had read. Erickson looked at whether these techniques could be used
with remedial students. Delgado studied whether students doing research projects can come up with their own lists of words, which
they needed for understanding independent reading or writing projects. This included using the dictionary to find different word
forms often used synonymously, which they then used in sentences. Practice included using the newly learned words or word forms
into an interesting story first in 3-min timings. The 3-min timings did not allow enough organization time so Delgado increased their
plan time to 5 min, resulting in more vocabulary words used and used correctly. To decrease the erroneous use of new vocabulary
words, she had the students use SAFMEDS cards (Say All Fast Minute Every Day Shuffled) for the vocabulary definitions and also
similar practice with the parts of speech. Although they may be similar in physicality, SAFMEDS are not flashcards because there is no
requirement that flashcards be timed or reviewed every day. A critical feature of SAFMEDS is that they are timed, practiced every day
and spoken quickly. Once these skills were mastered, the students utilized them in reading Shakespeare’s (2004/1600) play, A
Midsummer Night’s Dream Their final reading, comprehension, and writing for the semester were Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and
Julius Caesar. In addition, each student did a teacher-approved independent research project. Looking at one 13-year-old student’s
chart, his new vocabulary words used correctly went from four per month to 10, and his words written went from 7 to 30 even though
the aim was 23 words per minute.

5. An analysis of writing a book

While consulting at Riverside Indian School to train teachers in the use of the SCC as well as to supervise the teaching of reading,
comprehension, and writing, I was writing my seventh book, The Night Orion Fell (Calkin, 2012b), a book about a commercial fishing
accident. Shortly after beginning the book, I began to count four of my writing behaviors: has creative writing ideas, thinks about
writing, writes words, and edits words, sentences, or paragraphs. Two of these are inner behaviors—has a creative writing idea, and thinks
about writing, and two are outer behaviors—writes words, and edits words or passages written. How do I define these behaviors?
When I have a creative writing idea, my behavior is unique, it stands out, or sends chills through me. Both my thought and
emotional reaction to the idea cause me to “turn my head” to look at it. I developed the habit of writing it down immediately. When a
creative writing idea comes to me, it comes unbidden, has an “ah-ha,” serendipitous quality to it. It is a thrill. When it turns into a poem
or something within precision teaching or behavior analysis, the idea usually comes as a series of words. When ideas relate to a novel
or a creative nonfiction book, such as The Night Orion Fell (Calkin, 2012b), they come as visual images requiring words to describe
them. Many of these visual images I write on a 3 × 5 card and stash them in piles according to topic. My thought is “these words
work,” and then I find other people have a positive response to the sentence or combination of words. My early English teacher
rewarded creativity in thinking or word usage by reading it to the class, writing positive comments on the paper, or giving an A+.
While I do not know what the stimuli for my creative behaviors are, my rewards have also come from several other people including
Lindsley. He rewarded my creativity in precision teaching and literary writing by raising his voice and becoming very animated.
When I think about writing or develop a specific idea into more detail, this behavior is best described as thinks about writing. It may
be a thought, which is verbal behavior, or a visual image of a scene, which needs to be transformed into words, a verbal behavior. It
also occurs when I think or ponder words, images, phrases, phrasing, sentence placement, or modifications to any of these as I am
about to hand write or enter the words on the computer. Thinks writing ideas may be repetitive as I contemplate, write, edit a word or
phrase, refine a clause, or try to describe something differently.
Certain stimuli produce more inner writing behaviors. These include, and thus may be a stimulus for a creative writing idea, when I
walk in a remote area of nature, fall asleep, wake up, swim, ride the exercise bike in the room next to my study, cross country ski
alone, or listen to classical music. The music itself stimulates thoughts and feelings and comes to represent particular works I write.
Berlioz worked well for one novel, Russian liturgical music for another, Shostakovich and Perkins for a memoir about the military,
and late nineteenth century Russian composers for writing about behavior.4 I did not consciously plan these pairings and have not
stopped to question why a particular piece of music becomes a stimulus.
Thinks writes words is the physical behavior of thinking the word, phrase, or sentence then writing it on a 3 × 5 card or mobile
phone note while walking, or when I enter it on the computer. If I have a computer breakdown, or am camping or hiking and write by
hand, it is the act of writing the word. However, the verbal behavior of thinking about the word comes before I enter or write the
word and is a separate behavior. I may choose to use a word or phrase or not; that choice is the inner behavior of thinks about writing.
Thinks Writes edits occurs when I make changes to a printed page or enter changes directly onto the computer. These changes are
additions, deletions, and moving text whether words, word parts, phrases, clauses, sentences, or paragraphs. I can edit a single word
or multiple words. If I delete an entire sentence, that is one edit. Changing one word is an edit. In either case, I check them off and
count only the checkmarks. Someone once told me I didn’t need to print to make corrections, that I should save paper and make them
directly on the computer. When I examined that process, I realized I edited on the screen several times, read the draft aloud, and
counted all edited corrections. Fully satisfied, I then printed the section only to learn, on one occasion, I had 17 times more
corrections to the printed pages after the computer pages were “perfect” and ready to submit. Given that the ×17 increase means a

4
A list of the particular 12 recordings is available from the author on request.

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Fig. 5. Abigail’s range of writing behaviors shows the frequency distributions and semi-interquartile ranges of the four behaviors on the daily SCC. From left to right
these behaviors are has creative writing idea, thinks writing idea, thinks writes words, and thinks writes edits. The number by each frequency distribution’s semi-interquartile
range is the middle (median) datum of the pinpoint. The darkened part indicates the semi-interquartile range.

17-fold increase, or an increase of 1600%, I continue to edit using both procedures.5

Collecting these data—has a creative writing idea, thinks about writing, writes words, and thinks writes edits—helped change my
writing behaviors. Whatever my topic, I have a high frequency of thinking about it. A major learning was that the higher the
frequency of writing thoughts, the more I was at my desk writing, and the greater the number of words written. The second major
learning I saw was that the product is not good enough to submit until I find words, sentences, or parts to edit less than one per
10 min. The third major learning was certain environments are stimuli for more creative writing ideas or thoughts about writing. These
include going for walks in the woods or at the beach, being in my study, and in silence or listening to certain musical compositions.
My longtime interest in charting inner behaviors on the SCC has been 1) to define specific inner behaviors; 2) to collect a
topography, that is, to define the features and possible conditions of the behavior; 3) to learn more about how people behave in
thought, feeling and urge; 4) to see what works to change both positive and unpleasant inner behaviors; and 5) to see if I can
determine more about the relationship between inner and outer behaviors. Again, what I have found is that behavior is behavior. It is
not something amorphous or philosophical but the action of a person whether that behavior is inner or public.

6. Viewing the charts

6.1. Frequency, celeration, and bounce

Frequency is the basic element used to measure behavior. I counted each occurrence of each of the four behaviors I did when
writing, divided each daily total count by how long I counted (F = C/T), and plotted it. I counted creative writing ideas and thoughts
about writing from the time I awoke to when I went to sleep, often up to 18 h per day. I counted words written from the start to the end
time of writing and, likewise, from the start to the end time of editing. Across four of the years of writing the book, various articles
and poems, the median writing time was three and a half hours per day and editing time an hour a day. Because of the long duration
of this project, I have 12 daily charts covering a span of 3 years, 4 months for each of the four behaviors. After collecting the data, I
analyzed frequency, celeration, and bounce.

5
Such a high percentage can exist when one uses a semi-logarithmic chart to measure behavior yielding multiplicative change as opposed to the arithmetic change
shown with a percentage. This is important because behavior changes by multiplying or dividing, not by adding or subtracting (Lindsley 2010; Lindsley et al., 1973).

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Fig. 5 shows the frequency distributions and semi-interquartile ranges of the four behaviors on the daily SCC. The frequency
distribution of the creative writing idea charts is from 0 to 24 per day with a semi-interquartile range of one to 5 and a middle
frequency of 3 per day. The frequency distribution of thinks a writing idea had the greatest frequency range, from one to 576. Its semi-
interquartile range was 38 to 155 with a middle frequency of 78 per day.
The record floors of thinks writes words and thinks edits words were variable ranging from approximately one hour to three hours
per day. The frequency range for thinks writes words was from one word in 10 min to 28 per min with the semi-interquartile range
from 2 to 10 per min with a middle of 4.8 words written per min. The frequency for edits per minute is lower than that for words
written. The range was 2 in 100 min to 2 per min. The semi-interquartile range for edits was 2 to 6 in 10 min. The middle frequency
was 38 per 10 min, or 0.38. From previous editing I had noticed that once the edits were below 1 per 10 min, I could consider I had
finished editing. I learned that rarely did I find any additional edits after that.
Fig. 5 also shows that writes creative ideas has the lowest frequency, and there is a step-up6 to thinks writing ideas and another step-
up to writes words. Editing has a lower frequency than writing, not surprising when we consider that if a person writes well, s/he gets
it closer to the desired product, and needs to do less editing.
Fig. 6 is one of the 12 daily thinks writing ideas charts and shows several elements. It shows the effect of hearing that a very close
friend and mentor, Ogden Lindsley, was dying, and 10 days later learning my sister-in-law of 50 years was also dying. The frequency
and the number of days I did no counting of behaviors were a part of my reaction to the impending deaths of these two people who
had been major influences on my life. This chart also shows that writing while consulting at Riverside Indian School and writing at
home had little difference in frequency or celeration. However, this was not true on all the charts across three and a half years. The
celerations of writing at each location were also similar on this chart—the celeration while at Riverside was x1.5 per week, and while
at home was x1.2 per week. The deceleration of frequency and of celeration occurred while in Kansas attending the services for
Lindsley.
At the top of the chart, “Accident” refers to writing about when the skipper of the commercial fishing boat was caught and stuck in
the trawl reel next to his dead deckhand. Notes on the bottom, under the horizontal 0 line, “Grief, Disposition, Home, and Interviews”
refer to my inners, environment, and behavior.

6.2. Cosine

Graphs of certain functions possess patterns where the values of the functions are periodic. Usually used to describe various
physical phenomena such as motion of a vibrating object in music, water waves, electromagnetic radiation including light, radio
waves, and x-rays, I used the cosine function to give a graphic analysis of the increases and decreases of my writing behaviors across
months. I totaled the daily counts of thinks about writing for each month and plotted the high and the low frequencies for each of the
39 monthly counts on the SCC monthly chart. This produced a set of ordered pairs of real numbers, which I graphically represented
on the chart in Fig. 7. The range of monthly high and low total frequencies tends to be x20 per month or a little greater.
The top of the monthly range for the first nine months lies between the frequencies of 5 and 110. The range of the last nine months
is between 13 and 300, roughly a triple increase from the beginning of the project to the end. The overall celeration trend is x1.3 for
the top range of writing thoughts per day and also x1.3 for the bottom range of thoughts per day. The spread of the monthly
highs—the frequencies at the top—is x11. The three highest months were when I interviewed Coast Guardsmen about the rescue. The
spread of the monthly lows—the frequencies at the bottom—is x70. Some things are generally apparent—my thinking about writing
during the year was cyclical, and I tended to have lower thoughts about writing during June and July. This may be related to living in
Alaska where winter months have 6 h of daylight and more writing time, and summer months have 18 h of daylight when I spend
time outdoors gardening, boating, and hiking in my remote environment. We also have summertime grandchildren care three days a
week and out of state visitors who come only in summer.
The cosine curve indicates the seasonal variations, whereas a straight celeration line would not. While the trends are not absolute,
they indicate that summer is not the time for writing, but winter is. Based on this information, I made a decision that I would not
make any work commitments that require a product during summer or early autumn.
In view of the discussion above, it is apparent to me that counting my behaviors when writing increases my thinking about writing
even within topic and seasonal variability.

7. Summary

While some research and discussion of creativity and writing behaviors exist in the realm of behavior analysis, the majority of the
work in the field is more general and less analytical. The vast majority of writers, artists, and musicians shy away from any kind of
thorough, analytical examination of their work. A few authors, such as Wallace (1977), have kept track of daily production, and even
then held back from sharing that information.
Some researchers and teachers have done specific, behavioral work on writing. Morningside Academy is one of the very few
programs that does extensive work in researching and teaching students comprehension and writing skills in a detailed manner using
component and composite skills. Data on student learning in this area come primarily from that school and program. Other program

6
A step-up is when the frequency of a behavior increases from one phase to the next. It usually refers to the same behavior step-up from one phase to the next. In this
case it is a step-up between behaviors. In the case of thinks writes words, there is a step-down to thinks-writes-edits.

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Fig. 6. One of Abigail’s charts of thinks about writing. This chart is one of the 12 charts of three years four months of data with the pinpoint of thinks about writing.
During the 140 days on this chart, I worked on the chapter, The Accident. Each dot shows the daily thoughts I had. Each drawn vertical line is a phase change, changed
by the circumstances of life. The dip in the first phase was when I learned a sister-in-law and Ogden Lindsley both had terminal cancer. This chart also includes phases
of working at RIS (Riverside Indian School, Oklahoma), attending Lindsley’s memorial service, being at home in Alaska, returning to Kansas and to Oklahoma.

Fig. 7. Cosine analysis of monthly totals of Abigail’s chart of thinks about writing. Each vertical line gives the monthly range of the thinks writing ideas data. The two
straight accelerating lines indicate the envelope of the top and bottom ranges of data. Note that the celeration of the data is x1.3 per month per year. The curved cosine
lines show the trend of the data, indicating seasonal variables.

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ideas are from Archer (2005). A writer or teacher of writing could use any of the ideas from Morningside Academy, Archer programs
or my writing for ideas and practices for writing or the teaching of writing. The behavior analytic study of writing is young enough
that we cannot yet state a prescription for all teaching of writing. These three methodologies, however, offer ways to approach its
study and teaching. The paucity of behavioral work and research in this area makes it obvious that most people and researchers shy
away from tackling this somewhat difficult but fascinating and fun topic. While this approach may be too detailed for some, anyone
can adapt these methods to examine his or her own writing so that writers, teachers of writing, and behavior analysts have more
knowledge about the processes and skills that comprise a written work.

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