3.31

Flower & Hayes
The duo write that writing is done in different thinking processes that overlap. The point I liked best was that rather than thinking about what writers do best in terms of the finished product, we should think of it in terms of their thinking process. I wonder if it would be hard for the researchers to just review themselves and how they write? At one point I thought, “Why don’t they just write about what they’re doing right now as they write it?” You know the more I talk about writing and evaluate writing the less I feel I can write. At a certain point its time to cut the analysis and just write. There’s no other way to fully understand it. What I don’t get about academic writing is why it is often times as dry as it is. Maybe that speaks to the cognitive process. Academic writing is very formulaic, so if we are following a formula, how does that affect our writing process? Would it be comparable to dancing when you are given specific steps? It’s still dancing, but it doesn’t necessarily have rhythm. Different strokes for different folks. I also don’t like dancing with steps even though I know counting helps. Perhaps this is an indication of me being a “poor writer.” Poor writer is a term used in this essay, which I don’t care for. What is poor writing? Who is a poor writer? Is a poor writer someone who doesn’t fully engage their audience? Then might not Flower and Hayes be poor writers? Or does it have to do with me? Am I a poor reader? Maybe I am a poor reader and a poor writer, but even if I am I still enjoy both activities so I don’t feel poor at all.

Another point that they made that caught my attention was that we define our problems as we write, so if we don’t see a problem then of course we don’t approach it. I know several of my students have told me, “Well I thought I wrote I good paper. I felt it was a good paper.” I believe them when they say that so then how do I respond? Maybe I should say, “You thought wrong.” But that doesn’t seem productive. Other students have said that they’ll write the paper. Fix a little here, fix a little there and then turn it in. The writing process, the thinking process, the stages, the decision making, the goal setting….how do they develop? Based on this essay, one minor adjustment I could make is in terms of the terminology I use. Rather than saying pre-write, saying brainstorm/ idea gathering/ free flow/ free fall/ free for all. Maybe in their peer reviews have them talking about what their plan is for the paper, then meet again a few days later and talk about how their plan is going so that they can compare how their plans change and develop and make them more conscious of what’s going on with themselves.

A third valuable point in the essay was that, “…organizing takes on the job of helping the writer make meaning…” To say to a student, “work on organization,” might be meaningless if they don’t see that organization helps to create meaning. And then there’s organization at different levels. Sentence level, paragraph level. How do you tell your thoughts to be organized? Well first, you have to have enough on paper to work with….

A fourth valuable point is that planning is not just made through language but also through images and physical sensations. We have an image and we try and get it down on paper. We don’t know the message but we know the feeling that we are trying to recreate. I like that way of thinking because sometimes we get stuck on word level. How does this sentence lead into the next? How does this paragraph tie with the next one? Hmmmm…