The following publications focus primarily on the cognitive dimension of writing. You may also want to consult the related list of publications focussing on writing's social and cultural dimensions. Because of the interrelated nature of these topics, many publications are cross-listed.
TR 1. Research in Writing: Past, Present and Future, by
Sarah Warshauer Freedman, Anne Haas Dyson, Linda Flower,
and Wallace Chafe. This paper reviews the past twenty
years of writing research in order to posit a social-
cognitive theory of writing and the teaching and learning
of writing. The authors provide a constructive rationale
for the research mission of the Center for the Study of
Writing. (Note: For an updated version of this literature
review for a broader audience, see Occasional Paper No.
20.) August, 1987; 61 pages; $4.50.
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TR 5. Properties of Spoken and Written Language, by
Wallace Chafe and Jane Danielewicz. Chafe and Danielewicz
discuss important linguistic features that characterize
different types of spoken and written language, from
dinner conversations to academic papers. Taking into
account the cognitive and social demands made on speakers,
listeners, writers, and readers in their interactions,
they analyze the reasons for these language differences.
May, 1987; 27 pages; $4.00.
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TR 21. Studying Cognition in Context: Introduction to
the Study, by Linda Flower (Reading-to-Write Report 1).
Reading-to-write is an act of critical literacy central to
much of academic discourse. This report introduces the
Reading-to-Write project, which examined the cognitive
processes of reading-to-write as they were embedded in the
social context of a college course. Flower discusses the
background to the project and provides an overview of the
study design, which included an exploratory study
(Technical Report 6) and a teaching study (Technical
Reports 22-30). May, 1989; 42 pages; $4.00.
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TR 24. Exploring the Cognition of Reading-to-Write, by
Victoria Stein (Reading-to-Write Report 5). This report
describes how a comparison of the think-aloud protocols of
36 students showed differences in ways students monitored
their comprehension, elaborated, structured the reading,
and planned their texts. A study of these patterns of
cognition and case studies of selected students revealed
both some successful and some problematic strategies
students brought to this reading-to-write task. May, 1989;
39 pages; $4.00.
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TR 25. Elaboration: Using What You Know, by Victoria
Stein (Reading-to-Write Report 6). This report provides a
more in-depth look at one of the cognitive processes used
in reading-to-write, namely elaboration. The process of
elaboration allows students to use prior knowledge not
only for comprehension and critical thinking, but also for
structuring and planning their papers. However, this study
found that much of this valuable thinking failed to be
transferred into students' papers, although it had an
important indirect influence. May, 1989; 24 pages; $4.00.
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TR 27. Translating Context into Action, by John Ackerman
(Reading-to-Write Report 8). Based on protocols, texts,
and interviews, this report describes a set of "initial
reading strategies" nearly every freshman used to begin
the task--strategies that appear to reflect their training
in summarization and recitation of information. From this
limited and often unexamined starting point, students then
had to construct a solution path which either clung to,
modified, or rejected this a-rhetorical initial approach
to reading and writing. May, 1989; 31 pages; $4.00.
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TR 28. The Cultural Imperatives Underlying Cognitive
Acts, by Kathleen McCormick (Reading-to-Write Report 9).
By setting reading-to-write in a broad cultural context,
this report explores some of the cultural imperatives that
might underlie particular cognitive acts. Protocols and
interviews suggest that three culturally-based attitudes
played a role in this task: the desire for closure, a
belief in objectivity, and a refusal to write about
perceived contradictions. May, 1989; 37 pages; $4.00.
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TR 29. Negotiating Academic Discourse, by Linda Flower
(Reading-to-Write Report 10). Academic writing is both a
cognitive and social process guided by strategic
knowledge--the goals writers set based on their reading of
the context, the strategies they invoke, and their
awareness of both these processes. This report discusses
the difficulties experienced by many college freshmen as
they seek to negotiate the transition from a writing
process based on comprehension and response to a more
fully rhetorical, constructive process. May, 1989; 43
pages; $4.00.
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TR 30. Expanding the Repertoire: An Anthology of
Practical Approaches for the Teaching of Writing,
edited by Kathleen McCormick (Reading-to-Write Report 11).
This set of classroom approaches, written by teachers
collaborating on a course that grew out of the Reading-to-
Write project, helps students to explore their assumptions
about their own reading and writing processes, become more
aware of the cognitive and cultural implications of their
choices, and find alternative approaches to the writing
task. May, 1989; 77 pages; $5.50.
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TR 32. Foundations for Creativity in the Writing
Process: Rhetorical Representations of Ill-defined
Problems, by Linda J. Carey and Linda Flower. This paper
examines the composing process of expert writers working
in expository genres. Taking a problem-solving
perspective, the authors address the concept of creativity
in writing as it is embedded in ordinary cognitive
processes. June, 1989; 30 pages; $4.00.
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TR 34. Planning in Writing: The Cognition of a
Constructive Process, by Linda Flower, Karen A.
Schriver, Linda Carey, Christina Haas, and John R. Hayes
(a joint report with the Carnegie Mellon Planning
Project). This paper describes the process adult writers
bring to ill-defined expository tasks, such as writing
essays, articles, reports, and proposals. It presents a
theory of constructive planning based on a detailed
analysis of expert and novice writers and suggests goals
for instruction and the support of planning. July, 1989;
55 pages; $4.50.
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TR 35. Differences in Writers' Initial Task
Representations, by Linda Carey, Linda Flower, John R.
Hayes, Karen A. Schriver, and Christina Haas (a joint
report with the Carnegie Mellon Planning Project). This
exploratory study investigates how writers represent their
task to themselves before beginning to write. Examining
the writing plans of expert as well as student writers, it
uncovers ways in which the type of planning writers do and
the quality of their texts correlate. July, 1989; 28
pages; $4.00.
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TR 46. Plain Language for Expert or Lay Audiences:
Designing Text Using Protocol-Aided Revision, by
Karen A. Schriver. This paper addresses both critics and
proponents of the "plain language" movement, arguing for a
redefinition of plain English and suggesting a method for
assessing whether or not a text is indeed clear to its
intended readership. Using two case studies, Schriver
details the process of protocol-aided revision, which uses
reader feedback to help writers to modify texts for expert
or lay audiences. She also provides a cognitive model of
the process of protocol-aided revision. February, 1991; 38
pages; $4.00.
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TR 47. Transforming Texts: Constructive Processes in
Reading and Writing, by Nancy Nelson Spivey. This paper
focuses on the complex processes involved when writers
compose from sources, processes in which writing
influences reading and reading influences writing. Arguing
that this "hybrid act of literacy" has been neglected in
research, Spivey discusses ways writers organize, select,
and connect content as they appropriate source materials
and transform them in generating new texts. February,
1991; 24 pages; $4.00.
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TR 55. Writing from Sources: Authority in Text and
Task, by Stuart Greene. In this study, fifteen
undergraduates in a European history seminar were asked to
write either a report or a problem-based essay,
integrating prior knowledge with information from six
textual sources. Analyses of the student essays as well as
think-aloud protocols and reading-writing logs revealed
that the groups differed significantly in their
interpretations of the two tasks and in their approaches
to restructuring textual information; students writing
problem-based essays included significantly more content
units in their essays than students writing reports.
October, 1991; 32 pages; $4.00.
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TR 56. Collaboration and the Construction of Meaning,
by Linda Flower and Lorraine Higgins. This study explores
the constructive and collaborative process of a group of
college freshmen in a writing course. Flower and Higgins
discuss the theoretical roots of collaborative planning,
look at students' planning as acts of construction and
negotiation, and raise questions about the role students'
strategic knowledge plays in this social/cognitive
process. December, 1991; 74 pages; $5.50.
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TR 59. Constructing a Research Paper: A Study of
Students' Goals and Approaches, by Jennie Nelson. This
study considers the processes involved in writing an
academic research paper. Nelson studied twenty-one college
freshmen enrolled in an introductory cognitive psychology
class to determine how students understood the teacher's
research paper assignments, whether students took
extensive notes and produced multiple drafts, and whether
these "high-investment" reading and writing processes led
to higher-quality papers. February, 1992; 16 pages; $3.50.
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TR 60. Collaboration Between Children Learning to
Write: Can Novices be Masters? by Colette Daiute and
Bridget Dalton. Daiute and Dalton explore the role of peer
collaboration in literacy development as a case study in
the broader inquiry on the social nature of learning and
cognitive development. They analyze individual and
collaborative stories produced by low-achieving urban
third-graders on a computer, as well as transcripts of the
talk between collaborative pairs, to illustrate that
children can learn and use complex story elements by
working with their peers. April, 1992; 54 pages; $4.50.
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TR 66. Linking Classroom Discourse and Classroom
Content: Following the Trail of Intellectual Work in
a Writing Lesson, by Cynthia Greenleaf and Sarah
Warshauer Freedman. This paper presents an approach to
analyzing classroom talk that sheds light on the
intellectual work of the classroom. The authors analyze a
whole-class interaction in a ninth-grade English
classroom. The analysis reveals the underlying
intellectual structure of the interaction, including the
teacher's pedagogical goals, the cognitive skills required
for successful student participation in the activity, and
the strategies students apply to the task. September,
1993; 42 pages; $4.00.
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TR 68. Crossing the Bridge to Practice: Rethinking the
Theories of Vygotsky and Bakhtin, by Sarah Warshauer
Freedman. Freedman argues that Vygotsky's and Bakhtin's
theories of social interaction are so general that they
are not always useful guides for classroom practice. A
comparison of secondary school classrooms in Great Britain
and the United States reveals that when teachers apply
similar theories to everyday practice, important
pedagogical contrasts remain--both in terms of the ways
instruction is organized and in terms of what students
produce. May, 1994; 16 pages; $3.50.
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TR 69. Implications of Cognitive Psychology for
Authentic Assessment and Instruction, by Robert
Calfee. Calfee offers a brief sketch of developments in
the psychology of learning and thinking over the past half
century, provides a few thoughts about the forks in the
road that now confront U.S. educators (continuing a
tradition of "managed" schooling versus a radical
transformation in the teaching profession), focuses on
testing and assessment (probably the point of greatest
tension at present), and describes an assessment model
that relies on teacher judgments for both internal and
external accountability. May, 1994; 22 pages; $4.00.
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OP 1. Interpretive Acts: Cognition and the Construction
of Discourse, by Linda Flower. This paper discusses the
cognitive processes which make reading and writing
constructive (and intentional) acts. Flower elucidates a
cognitive framework for understanding the acts of reading
and writing, contrasting it with other familiar frameworks
from other disciplines. September, 1987; 18 pages; $3.50.
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OP 4. The Construction of Purpose in Writing and
Reading, by Linda Flower. Based on a decade of studies of
the cognitive processes student and expert writers reveal
while composing text, this paper discusses two
interrelated concerns: how writers come by/find/create
their sense of purpose, and whether readers are aware of
or are affected by writers' purposeful text construction.
July, 1988; 21 pages; $4.00.
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OP 7. The Problem-Solving Processes of Writers and
Readers, by Ann S. Rosebery, Linda Flower, Beth Warren,
Betsy Bowen, Bertram C. Bruce, Margaret Kantz, and Ann M.
Penrose (from a joint project with the Center for the
Study of Reading). The authors focus on writing and
reading as forms of problem-solving that are shaped by
communicative purpose. They examine the kinds of problems
that arise as writers and readers attempt to communicate
with one another--as writers and readers try to write to a
specific audience, for example, or as readers try to
interpret an author's meaning--and the strategies they
draw upon to resolve those problems. January, 1989; 30
pages; $4.00.
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OP 11. Cognition, Context, and Theory-Building, by Linda
Flower. In this paper, Flower addresses the debate in
composition studies over whether individual cognition or
social and cultural context provides the motive force for
the writing process. Flower posits the need for a more
integrated theoretical vision to explain the interaction
between context and cognition. She discusses ways
educators might build an interactive vision and how such a
vision might improve writing instruction. May, 1989; 27
pages; $4.00.
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OP 17. Toward a Dialectical Theory of Composing, by
Stuart Greene. Greene reviews recent social theories of
knowledge in composition studies and criticizes the
neglect of individual cognition--of how individuals
reflect, form judgments, make choices, and construct
meaning. He calls for a dialectical cognitive-social
epistemic that acknowledges both social and ideological
forces as well as cognitive processes in explaining how
students learn to write in their chosen disciplines.
January, 1990; 19 pages; $3.50.
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OP 29. Mining Texts in Reading to Write, by Stuart
Greene. In this paper, Greene proposes a set of strategies
for connecting reading and writing, discussing ways
writers read and select information from source texts when
they have a sense of authorship. In order to make clear
how authorship affects reading, Greene explores three key
"excavation" strategies students employ for what he terms
"mining" a text--reconstructing context, inferring or
imposing structure, and seeing choices in language.
October, 1991; 18 pages; $3.50.
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