Flower and Hayes on the Cognitive Writing Process

My understanding of the first goal that Flowers and Hayes bring up is somewhat skeptical. They raise the argument that for the most part, writers cannot necessarily separate the stages of writing as simply as pre-writing, drafting, revising etc. because writers constantly go through the process of prewriting and revising as they plan their work. I feel it's important to define the kind of writing we embark on before positing such ideals. Sadly, most of the time students in high school are not writing creatively, but rather writing research projects, exploratory essays or argumentative essays. In these cases, the planning happens in a rather linear process at a low level. Once students reach university level and they begin exploring different theses instead of simply practicing how to write in a formula (intro, body paragraph one and so on) I completely agree that it's difficult to tie down each stage of writing in such a rigid format and in turn very tricky to model such writing. As they say, "The problem with stage descriptions of writing is that they model the growth of the written product, not the inner process of the person producing it." Again in terms of creative writing, I agree with this argument: skilled writers must aim for a high level of revising and editing as a constant throughout the process rather than a cursory glance at the end of a first draft to make sure every sentence is correct and well placed. In the case of working with my 10th Grade students, however, I find the writing process incredibly helpful when they are trying to pin down their ideas and then spit them out onto a page. One major difference that this article didn't go into is the brainstorming stage that often precedes the pre-writing: this is the section I often see students come up with their most interesting and succinct ideas. I feel this is definitely a crucial addition.

One of the last ideas the authors argue comes back to this idea: they claim "the act of developing and refining one's own goals is not limited to a "pre-writing stage" in the composing process, but is intimately bound up with the on- going, moment-to-moment process of composing." This I can definitely relate to: to use Flower and Hayes' terminology, the 'writing goals' I would come up with for my students or in my own work (that should flourish throughout the process rather than be the start point that never shifts) would be to continuously consider the writing as it is put into the work. This is not yet natural to my students as they often become to tied to their initial ideas that they become like some venerable text, but I agree that a developing writer should absolutely allow their goals to develop and grow as they see their work progress.

Response to:
Flower, L. & Hayes, J. R. (1981).  A cognitive process theory of writing.  College Composition and Communication, 32 (4).  pp. 365-387.