|
|
4. What is the purpose of first-year composition?
For the cognitivists, the purpose of first-year composition is to teach writing as a process rather than product. Although other theories support this position, the cognitivists are the strongest proponents (Berlin 683).Linda Flower and John Hayes identify three distinct parts to the writing process: planning, translating, and reviewing. While planning, writers form an internal representation of the knowledge they will use when they write, which will probably be more abstract than what they actually do write (258).Planning is divided into three subcategories: generating ideas, organizing, and goal-setting. While generating ideas, students retrieve the information they need from long-term memory, which "is a storehouse of knowledge about the topic and audience, as well as knowledge of writing plans and problem representations" (Flower and Hayes 258). While organizing, writers structure their ideas meaningfully. And while goal-setting, writers set goals for themselves that are "both procedural (e.g., 'Now let's see--a--I want to start out with "energy") and substantive, often at the same time (e.g., 'I have to relate this [engineering project] to the economics [of energy] to show why I'm improving it and why the steam turbine needs to be more efficient' . . .)" (Flower and Hayes 259).Translating, the second part of the writing process, is when writers actually put their "ideas into visible language." During this part of the process, writers have to juggle all of the different demands of written English. These demands include both generic and formal, from syntactic to the actual tasks of forming letters (Flower and Hayes 260).The third part of the writing process, reviewing, is dependent on two sub-processes: evaluating and revising. Reviewing "may be a conscious process in which writers choose to read what they have written either as a springboard to further translating or with an eye to systematically evaluating and/or revising the text." Reviewing may also be unplanned, however, when writers evaluate either their text or their own planning (Flower and Hayes 261).Although cognitivists distinguish three parts of the writing process, they are quick to point out that it is recursive, meaning the different stages repeat themselves in no special order. Essentially, "the elements of the process can be identified and their functions described, but the order of their operation will vary from task to task and from individual to individual, even though the practices of good writers will be very similar to each other . . . " (Berlin 684).
|