A writing process is a set of mental and physical steps that someone takes to create any type of text. Almost always, these activities require inscription equipment, either digital or physical: chisels, pencils, brushes, chalk, dyes, keyboards, touchscreens, or pens, with each of these tools having unique affordances that influence writers' workflows.Haas, Christina (1996). Writing Technology: Studies on the Materiality of Literacy. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Mahwah, NJ. Writing processes are very individualized and task-specific, frequently involving activities such as talking, drawing, reading, and browsing. Additionally, pre-writing strategies may involve processes that are not usually associated with writing, such as clustering; free writing; and asking who, what, when, where, why, and how questions.
Historical and contemporary perspectives In 1972, Donald M. Murray published a brief manifesto titled "Teach Writing as a Process Not Product", in which he argued that English teachers' conventional training in literary criticism caused them to hold students' work to unhelpful standards of highly polished "finished writing".Donald M. Murray, "Teach Writing as a Process Not Product" The Leaflet (November 1972), rpt. in Cross-Talk in Comp Theory, 2nd ed., ed. Victor Villanueva, Urbana: NCTE, 2003. Teachers, he explained, ought to focus less on correcting students' written products and focus more on involving students in "discovery through language", which Murray believed for "most writers most of the time" involved a process: i.e., stages of "pre-writing, writing and rewriting". Though Murray was not alone in advocating process-based instruction, this manifesto is regardedAnson, Chris. "Process Pedagogy and Its Legacy" (2014). Tate, Gary; Hessler, Brooke; Rupiper-Taggart, Amy; Schick, Kurt (eds.). A Guide to Composition Pedagogies (2nd ed.). Oxford UP. pp. 212–230 . . as a landmark vocalization of the differences between process and product orientations in the teaching of writing. Donald Murray mentioned that writing is to be considered as a process, not a product. In other words, he viewed getting the writers to work their way in order to discover new things rather than reach an end. He viewed writing as a journey of revision and development by which one discovers insights and develops thinking. Within a decade, Maxine Hairston was to observe that the teaching of writing had undergone a transformation in moving from a focus on written products to writing processes.Maxine Hairston, "The Winds of Change: Thomas Kuhn and the Revolution in the Teaching of Writing" CCC 33 (1982), pp. 76–88, rpt. in The Norton Book of Composition Studies, ed. Susan Miller, New York: Norton, 2009
These categories were theorized more fully in subsequent scholarship. For example, pre-writing was defined by Project English experimental researcher D. Gordon Rohman as the "sort of 'thinking' [that] precedes writing" and the "activity of mind which brings forth and develops ideas, plans, designs". According to Rohman, writing begins "at the point where the 'writing idea' is ready for the words and the page". Student testimony of Rohman's research being effective can be seen here; "I was brought to an awareness of the world about me that I had just taken for granted. I really began to 'see.'" Even today, much "process-based" teaching has continued to broadly conceptualize writing processes along these three phases.Donahue, Christiane and Theresa Lillis. (2014). "Models of Writing and Text Production". In Handbook of Writing and Text Production, Eva-Marie Jakobs & Daniel Perrin, Eds. De Gruyter. Mouton: 55–78 . Some have linked this three-stage process to the five canons of rhetoric: pre-writing to invention and arrangement, writing to style, revising to delivery and sometimes memory.
While contemporary research on writing processes still accepts that some kind of process is necessarily involved in producing any written text, it now collectively endorses "the fundamental idea that no codifiable or generalizable writing process exists or could exist".Kent, Thomas (1999). "Introduction". Post-Process Theory: Beyond the Writing-Process Paradigm. Thomas Kent, ed. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1–6 . In this view, "writing processes are historically dynamic – not psychic states, cognitive routines, or neutral social relationships".Faigley, Lester. (1986) "Competing Theories of Process: A Critique and a Proposal". College English 48.6 527–542 . In terms of "pre-writing" for instance, writing processes often begin long before any visible documentable work or easily categorizable steps are observable. From the contemporary perspective of composition studies, it is thus inaccurate to assume that any authentic writing process (i.e., one not contrived as part of a school assignment or laboratory setting) necessarily involves a linear sequence of "stages". Rather different kinds of activities emerge as overlapping parts of a complex whole or parts of a repeating process that can be repeated multiple times throughout anyone's process of composing a particular document. For example, writers routinely discover that editorial changes trigger brainstorming and a change of purpose; that drafting is temporarily interrupted to correct a misspelling; or that the boundary between pre-writing and drafting is less than obvious.
Approaches to process The writing process has been described by composition scholars in a variety of ways with attention to "developmental, expressive, and social" elements.Sperling, Melanie. (1998). "Process Theory of Writing". In Theorizing Composition: A Critical Sourcebook of Theory and Scholarship in Contemporary Composition Studies.Mary Lynch Kennedy, ed. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press: 243–249 .
Cognitive process theory of writing (Flower–Hayes model)
Overview of cognitive model Linda Flower (a composition theorist known in the field of cognitive rhetoric) and John R. Hayes extended Bitzer's rhetorical situation and developed a set of heuristics that framed the writing process as a series of rhetorical problems to be solved. The heuristics focus on the generation and the structuring of ideas. Writers should choose goals with built-in guidelines that lead their content into certain directions. While generating ideas, four viable techniques come to play. These are: to write ideas without editing or filtering, to play out scenarios discussing the topic, to generate analogies, and to rest on ideas. When a writer is looking to push their ideas they should try to find cue words to the complex ideas together, to teach the ideas to another person, to tree ideas into classifications of organization, and to read their own writing as if they'd never seen it before. The last tool is to write for a specific audience by finding common ground with them.
Flower and Hayes further developed the cognitive model in "The Cognition of Discovery" by observing writers in order to learn how they generate meaning. They outlined the rhetorical problem as a list of what a writer may address or consider. In doing so, they created a model for the rhetorical problem that can be split up into two main categories: The rhetorical situation and the writer's own goals. The rhetorical situation is what motivates a writer to create ideas. The writer's own goals are instrumental to how ideas are formed. The rhetorical situation is further split into the purpose of the writing, and who will be reading it. The writer's own goals are split into how the reader is affected, the persona the writer uses, the meaning the writer can create, and implementation of writing conventions.
Relying too heavily on one singular model can be restrictive. Some researchers say the writing process approach is varied based on the amount of structure they have. When there are too many rules and planning, it can be counterproductive. Even though planning is necessary, sticking to it so strictly can lead to writer’s block. There is also the concept of generalization. This approach shows that the writing process is most effective when students can take a skill from one assignment to another with different concepts. In this theory, the process isn’t just about finishing the paper. It’s about using these building block skills for future tasks.
They came to three results from their study, which suggests that good writers envelop the three following characteristics when solving their rhetorical problems:
Good writers respond to all of the rhetorical problems. Good writers build their problem representation by creating a particularly rich network of goals for affecting a reader; and Good writers represent the problem not only in more breadth but in more depth.
Flower and Hayes suggest that composition instructors need to consider showing students how "to explore and define their own problems, even within the constraints of an assignment". They believe that "writers discover what they want to do by insistently, energetically exploring the entire problem before them and building for themselves a unique image of the problem they want to solve."
Historical approaches to composition and process A historical response to process is concerned primarily with the manner in which writing has been shaped and governed by historical and social forces. These forces are dynamic and contextual, and therefore render any static iteration of process unlikely.
Notable scholars that have conducted this type of inquiry include media theorists such as Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong, Gregory Ulmer, and Cynthia Selfe. Much of McLuhan's work, for example, centered around the impact of written language on oral cultures, degrees to which various media are accessible and interactive, and the ways in which electronic media determine communication patterns. His evaluation of technology as a shaper of human societies and psyches indicates a strong connection between historical forces and literacy practices.
Criticism of cognitive model Patricia Bizzell (a professor with a Ph.D in English and former President of Rhetoric Society of America) argues that even though educators may have an understanding of "how" the writing process occurs, educators should not assume that this knowledge can answer the question "about 'why' the writer makes certain choices in certain situations", since writing is always situated within a discourse community. She discusses how the Flower and Hayes model relies on what is called the process of "translating ideas into visible language". This process occurs when students "treat written English as a set of containers into which we pour meaning". Bizzell contends that this process "remains the emptiest box" in the cognitive process model, since it de-contextualizes the original context of the written text, negating the original. She argues, "Writing does not so much contribute to thinking as provide an occasion for thinking."
Traditional Models of Writing Historically, the writing process has been based on a strategic model that includes prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing. This structure presents writing as a strict linear process that is designed to guide new writers through composition. This model simplifies how writing actually occurs. Writers move through stages by revising and adjusting their ideas throughout the writing process rather than following a fixed sequenced format.
Social model of writing process "The aim of collaborative learning helps students to find more control in their learning situation.
The social model of writing relies on the relationship between the writers and readers for the purpose of creating meaning. "Writers seldom write exactly what they mean and readers seldom interpret a writer's words exactly as the writer intended."