The Social and Cognitive Studies in Writing and Literacy Series, is devoted to books that bridge research, theory, and practice, exploring social and cognitive processes in writing and expanding our knowledge of literacy as an active constructive process--as students move from high school to college.This descriptive study of reading-to-write examines a critical point in every college student's academic performance: when he or she is faced with the task of reading a source, integrating personal ideas, and creating an individual text with a self-defined purpose. Offering an unusually comprehensive view of this process, the authors chart a group of freshmen as they study and write in their dormitories, recording their "think-aloud" strategies for reading, writing, and revising, their interpretation of the task, and their broader social, cultural, and contextual understanding of college writing. Flower, Stein, and colleagues convincingly conclude that the legacy of schooling in general makes the transition to college difficult and, more important, that the assumptions students hold and the strategies they use in undertaking this task play a significant role in their academic performance. Embracing a broad range of perspectives from rhetoric, composition, literacy research, literary and cultural theory, and cognitive psychology, this rigorous analysis treats reading-to-write as both a cognitive and social process. It will interest researchers and theoreticians in rhetoric and writing, teachers working with students in transition from high school to college, and educators involved in the links between cognition and the social process.
Author(s): Linda Flower, Victoria Stein, John Ackerman, Margaret J. Kantz, Kathleen McCormick, Wayne C. Peck
Year: 1990
Language: English
Pages: 280
Contents......Page 8
Introduction: Studying Cognition in Context......Page 14
Appendix I: Reading-to-Write Assignment on Time Management......Page 37
Appendix II: Excerpt from Task Representation Lecture......Page 39
I: Reading-to-Write: Understanding the Task......Page 44
1. The Role of Task Representation in Reading-to-Write......Page 46
Task Representation in Reading-to-Write: The Exploratory Study......Page 52
The Power of the Organizing Plan......Page 54
How a Task Representation Is Created......Page 64
Costs, Benefits, Cognition, and Growth......Page 70
Taking Metacognitive Control: Awareness versus Standard Strategies......Page 78
Appendix III: Protocol Instructions......Page 83
Appendix IV: Reading-to-Write Assignment on Revision......Page 84
2. Promises of Coherence, Weak Content, and Strong Organization: An Analysis of the Students' Texts......Page 87
Rationale for the Two Taxonomies......Page 90
Promises of Coherence: What Were Those Essays Doing?......Page 92
Appendix V: Essay Categories and Instructions to Judges......Page 100
Appendix VI: Essays Using the Interpret-for-a-Purpose Organizing Plan......Page 103
Appendix VII: Inter-rater Agreement on Elaborated Taxonomy......Page 105
3. Students' Self-Analyses and Judges' Perceptions: Where Do They Agree?......Page 107
The Study......Page 109
What Our Students Reported......Page 110
Conclusions with Implications for Teaching......Page 119
Appendix VIII: Self-Analysis Checklist......Page 123
Appendix IX: Total Number of Selections with Percentages from the Self-Analysis Checklist......Page 125
II: Reading-to-Write: Cognitive Perspectives......Page 128
4. Exploring the Cognition of Reading-to-Write......Page 130
An Examination of Cognitive Processes......Page 132
The Cognition of Reading-to-Write: A Case Study Perspective......Page 136
Looking for Patterns: The Quantitative Analysis......Page 150
Appendix XI: Pearson Correlation Matrix......Page 153
Appendix XIII: Multiple Regression Results......Page 154
5. Elaboration: Using What You Know......Page 155
The Role of Elaboration in Reading-to-Write......Page 157
The Protocol Study......Page 159
Conclusion......Page 164
Procedure......Page 167
Key Observations......Page 168
The Effect of Prompts on Organizing Plans......Page 170
Protocol Analysis......Page 172
Negotiation Within an Instructional Setting......Page 175
Writers Revise Differently......Page 179
III: Reading-to-Write: Social Perspectives......Page 182
7. Translating Context into Action......Page 184
Locating Context: In Writers, In a Culture......Page 187
The Students' Opening Moves: Origins in a Literate Culture......Page 193
Asking Questions of a Legacy......Page 200
The Need to Place Student Writing in Broader Cultural Contexts......Page 205
Learning to Recognize Assumptions Underlying Students' Writing......Page 206
Developing Complementarities Between Rhetorical and Literary Theories: Reading for Absences......Page 207
Ideology and Students' Writing......Page 209
The Invisibility of Ideology in the Educational System......Page 211
Three Ideological Assumptions Guiding Students' Writing......Page 213
Appendix XIV: Interview Questions for Students......Page 227
IV: Uniting Cognition and Context......Page 230
A Conceptual Framework......Page 232
Developing an Organizing Idea......Page 244
The Tacit Transition to Academic Discourse......Page 256
References......Page 264
C......Page 274
F......Page 275
N......Page 276
R......Page 277
S......Page 278
W......Page 279
