AnnoBib -- “A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing”

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Flower, Linda and John R. Hayes. “A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing.” Composition and Communication 32.4 (December 1981): 365-387. Print.
Authors see composing as a kind of problem-solving activity; discuss “invariant” thought processes used when one is confronted with a writing task. Assume that although each writing task will have its own environment of purposes and constraints, the mental activity involved in juggling those constraints while moving to accomplish one's purposes does not change from task to task. Cognitive process is a social one, triggered by the imposition of a particular writing task. The process may also be shaped by attitudes absorbed in the social situation and modified in light of success or failure in problem-solving of the writing situation (audience, language, purpose). Cognitive processes are often individualized and are not generalized and some processes are more successful than others; one's process can be consciously or unconsciously modified. Process is hierarchical, not sequential.
    Flower and Hayes present significant research to describe a model of complete and successful composing process. Their use of protocol analysis as their research tool was an early example of this research method, one that elicits verbal reports from the participants (beyond the verbal discussion of Emig) – description of what happens in the mind during composition (the protocol) followed by scanning the transcription looking for self-description for features predicted by cognitive theory such as “organizing” and “revising.” One of the concerns of protocol analysis, however, is the need to bridge gaps between what the subject has verbalized and what she has forgotten (or did not recognize) during the protocol.
    One of the most-referenced works to introduce cognitivism into composition, useful to see fundamental ideas as they developed with Flower, et al.

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