AnnoBib -- “Cognition, Context, and Theory Building”

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Flower, Linda. “Cognition, Context, and Theory Building.” Composition and Communication 40.3 (October 1989): 282-311. Print.
Flower tries to bridge the gap between cognition and context - whether the composing act is more influenced by either individual cognition and personal values or social forces and cultural context - by suggesting that the two are always interconnected and informing one another. Claims that moving beyond the debate between the two camps would help scholars understand more deeply how writing happens and help teachers guide their students through the hurdles, both personal and social, they face while writing. Flower offers three principles that show that cognition and context not only influence each other, but construct one another: that context provides cues to the individual writer, that context is always mediated by the individual writer, and that a writer's purpose, though constrained and bounded, is always a meaningful rhetorical act. The article goes on to discuss observational research methodology and explain why observational research is essential in creating a theory that explains the intimate relationship between cognition and context.
Useful in describing the theory, its application, and prediction in pedagogy.

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