Writing Under the Infl uence (of the Writing Process (original) (raw)

Research on Writing: Multiple Perspectives

2017

The International Exchanges on the Study of Writing Series publishes booklength manuscripts that address worldwide perspectives on writing, writers, teaching with writing, and scholarly writing practices, specifically those that draw on scholarship across national and disciplinary borders to challenge parochial understandings of all of the above. The series aims to examine writing activities in 21st-century contexts, particularly how they are informed by globalization, national identity, social networking, and increased cross-cultural communication and awareness. As such, the series strives to investigate how both the local and the international inform writing research and the facilitation of writing development. This recently announced series is now accepting proposals.

Moving Writing Research into the 21st Century. Occasional Paper No. 36

1994

To move composition research forward into the 21st century, research conducted at the National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy will benefit by continuing to be inclusive-of a diverse population of learners, taught by a diverse population of teachers, using approaches that allow for a diversity of ways of learning. The initial theory underlying the Center's research program was a socio-cognitive theory of writing based on the work of L. S. Vygotsky. Using a Vygotskian theoretical frame, the Center in 1985 conducted a 'tudy that compared learning to write in inner city schools in the United States and Great Britain. In the end, Vygotsky's concept of social interaction proved much too general to account for the teaching and learning of w;:iting. By 1990, the Center had expanded its notions of social proceses and social interaction to give greater consideration to the cultural meaning of students' experiences. A current project explores the dynamics of learning to write and writing to learn in urban multicultural classrooms. The project involves a national collaboration with teachers who work with Center personnel to conduct research in their own classrooms. The Center's sociocultural frame is proving particularly important in helping researchers understand the needs of ethnically and socioeconomically diverse populations of learners. (Contains 13 references.) (RS)

A Review and Evaluation of Prominent Theories of Writing

Journal of Applied Communications

Theoretical frameworks bring order to phenomena and provide a context for both research and practice. However, it has only been in the last four decades that theoretical frameworks have guided writing research. Before the 1980s, writing research focused more on mechanics and grammar than on cognitive thought processes related to writing. During the mid-1990s, theories shifted to a more sociocultural view of writing. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to apply theory evaluation criteria to theories of writing to review and evaluate their use and applicability in modern-day writing research. A literature review yielded three theories consistent across publications: cognitive process theory of writing, social cognitive theory of writing, and sociocultural theory of writing. The theories were reviewed and evaluated using accuracy, consistency, fruitfulness, simplicity/complexity, scope, acceptability, and sociocultural utility. Since the 1980s, writing researchers have modif ied theories to define writing ideas, concepts, and relationships. Cognitive processes should also be included in writing theories because of their importance in knowledge construction. Of the three theories that were reviewed and evaluated, the social cognitive theory of writing was the most complete. Its structure included society's influence on writing and the cognitive processes involved in writing development. Each writing theory brought a unique perspective to writing research, but Flower's theory was a complete theory that incorporated an in-depth look at writing as a product of cognitive processes situated within society. However, more research needs to be done on its applicability in agricultural communications research and practice.

THE "SOCIO-COGNITIVE APPROACH TO WRITING" INTERVENTION PROGRAMME

Instructional Materials, 2020

What is the socio-cognitive approach? Flower (1994) argued that "neither social nor cognitive theory makes genuine sense without the other" (p. 33) and instead pushed for an integrated social cognitive theory. The cognitive process is first discussed in this paper. It is framed within the understanding of the cognitive theory. This is followed by a discussion on genre-based pedagogy which is situated within the socio-cultural theory. An examination of these two constructs will allow us to draw on their underpinnings and gain a better understanding of the socio-cognitive approach adopted in this writing programme. 1.1 Cognitive process of writing Many researchers have investigated how people write (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Flower & Hayes, 1981; Hayes, 1996), and it was generally concluded that not all writers follow the same process when they write (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987). The writing process (planning, writing, and revising) has long been established. A more informative understanding surfaces when the writing processes of skilled and unskilled writers are compared. This will first be presented to provide the necessary frame in understanding how the cognitive process of writing came to be adapted for use in the writing classroom.

Research in Writing: Past, Present, and Future

1987

To support arguments for an integrative approach to the study of writing, this report summarizes past and current trends in writing research and the resulting implications. The introduction discusses pre-1970s, 1970s, and 1980s research trends, noting that current research focuses on the context in which writing takes place and points out the benefits of building a social cognitive theory of writing. The first section, containing a review of relevant research, begins with a section on the uses of writing, stressing the notion of "communicative competence" as the individual's knowledge of appropriate uses of language in varied social contexts. This section also looks at the direction of current research, literacy communities, and the evaluation of written language. The second section of the literature review examines the nature of writing, and includes information on current research trends, possible new directions in research and their implications, writing processes and products, the role of technology, and individual differences in composing strategies. The third section of the report examines the acquisition of writing skills, with subsections on current research trends, the connection between writing and learning, the role of adults and peers, computer responses to writing, and new directions in research. The final section of the report suggests areas for future research. Twenty-one pages of references are included. (JC)

Writing as a sociolinguistic object (TPCS 42, 2012)

Writing has never been a core object of sociolinguistics, and this paper argues for a mature sociolinguistics of writing. From a sociolinguistic viewpoint, writing needs to be seen as a complex of specific resources subject to patterns of distribution, of availability and accessibility. If we take this approach to the field of writing, and unthink the unproductive distinction between 'language' and 'writing', we can distinguish several specific sets of resources that are required for writing: from infrastructural ones, over graphic ones, linguistic, semantic, pragmatic and metapragmatic ones, to social and cultural ones. These resources form the 'sub-molecular' structure of writing and each of them is subject to different patterns of distribution, leading to specific configurations of writing resources in people's repertoires. Thus, we can arrive at vastly more precise diagnostic analyses of 'problems' in writing, and this has a range of important effects.

Prior, P., & Thorne, S. L. (2014). Research Paradigms: Product, Process, and Social Activity. In Eva-Maria Jakobs and Daniel Perrin (eds.), Handbook of Writing and Text Production (pp. 31-54). The Mouton de Gruyter Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Series, Volume 10. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

This chapter explores how to identify research lines and paradigms in writing research by focusing on the issue of how to understand writing as an object of inquiry and how then to map writing research through multidimensional profiling. While noting the quite diverse lines of contemporary research on writing and text production, it suggests that a full theory of writing constructs writing as situated and mediated activity distributed across temporal, cognitive, social, and material environments. Finally, it argues that semiotic and transdisciplinary frameworks offer a particularly rich framework for writing research that is both theoretically-grounded and practically-oriented.